Discussions

Meadows parents just got their third and fourth exposure letters since Thursday.  
 
- Grade 1/2 in school Dec 7/8  
- Grade 5/6 in school in school Dec 7/8/9  
- Grade K in school Dec 1-3 and 6-10  
- Grade 5/6 in school Dec 1-3 and 6-10  
 
Each of them in respective letters have been referred to as "at least one case"  
 
Most recent letter indicates that "at this time there is no evidence of further spread in the school, and students can continue to attend school as long as they do not have symptoms listed on the following page (of the letter)."

No indication seen in the letters of any kind of outbreak declaration, but naturally that would be concerning to see that many cases across that many classes in that short of a time period. 

School cases map has been updated for the week. Wish they would update it more often, but gives at least an idea of who has recently been affected.  
 
Of note, Spring Valley Colony School (20km SW of Brandon) is showing as in the two weeks prior to Sunday having 16 cases out of 37 students enrolled.  
 
In Brandon, schools with multiple cases Meadows at 3 (which we know is now at least 4), Vincent Massey at 3 and New Era at 4 in the same time frame.

https://geoportal.gov.mb.ca/apps/6e7af13b3ffb447a99734b0119b169d3/explore

outbreak declared at Meadows in grade 5/6 with at least three confirmed cases.  
 
Also announced "at least one" case in 3/4 today.  
That’s cases now in K, 1/2, 3/4 and 4/5 reported going back to Thursday evening.

Other then where the outbreak is declared, most recently letter continues to say "there is no evidence of further spread in the school, and students can continue to attend school as long as they do not have symptoms of COVID-19 as listed on the following page."

Two separate notifications for Meadows 3/4 classrooms this afternoon. One in school on 9th, 10th and 13th. Another in school on the 13th and 14th.  
 
Before that, the provincial outbreak page was showing a total of six in the Meadows outbreak. Not clear to me if that pertains only to the one class that's been declared an outbreak or Meadows as a whole. 

If your child is in Meadows, please contact the school to make sure you’re on the parent email list. BSD communications has actually been quite fast at sending out the notices late afternoon/early evening. Also make sure you’re checking your spam folder or your “Updates” folder if you use Gmail.

Sorry to hear that. It can be frustrating as a parent on the outside trying your best to Glean what you can while a lot of info gets lost in the hyper focus on privacy. Do you mean you see a case on the map but got no notification? If so that probably means there’s a case associated with someone that goes to or works at the school but they may have determined to have not been contagious when at school. If in your shoes I’d contact the principal with my concerns and see what they’re able to say.

BSD letter to parents this afternoon indicates that there have now been Omicron exposures in three schools, with affected families having been contacted by public health already. Some have made the Linden Lanes letter above public. Meadows has issued a letter indicating that they are another of those three schools. Greater takeaway is that the variant is clearly in the community.  

I know of at least a few families that had already decided to take the week off in one school after the series of exposure notices that came out last week. Interesting to note that BSD is making a remote learning option available to any parent that would like for these final three days this week. They’re asking people to contact their school for more information.

Just to expand on above, I think most important point is that we're clearly dealing with more Covid than we've had in Brandon in quite some time. Reached triple-digit active cases in the Brandon district today for the first time since late May. Add to that that the variant that's starting to dig it's heels in spreads way more freely than any we've had to respond to so far.

In prev number increases in the city, by following the data you could generally see the lion's share of cases as going back to a specific outbreak or two. Going by the broadening number of notifications across different schools over these last few days it doesnt look like that's likely to be the case now and into January.

The overall aura is one of not going as far as panicking, but realizing that whether it's new growth in Omicron cases or some interplay with Delta we have to be taking what we're being asked to do extra seriously... especially with the holidays this weekend. Tied in with that are new measures that come into place tomorrow from the Province.  

Where the worry especially comes in is the fact that our ICU capacity in Manitoba has been straddling the limit already this month before Omicron and we don't want any part in contributing to spread that worsens that ICU situation.  
 
As a family we've made our best effort through all of this when it comes to distancing, masking and of course getting the most recommended vax shots as soon as we're eligible. With the lay of the land clearly changing this week we'll be going a little further in knowing that we have a part to play in limiting contacts that ultimately turn into cases in an environment where there's likely active community spread. For us that means stuff like using curbside pickup a little more again when we can, and when shopping needs to be done having that trip be one member of our family rather than all of us going out together.  We've always paid attention to symptoms, but doubly so now. 
 
Just a reminder that the new measures that come into place Tuesday are listed by the Province at:  
https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/?archive=&item=52961

Health professionals have been pretty consistent in saying that a booster vaccine dose is the best protection against Omicron. Province has all the details on vaccines at https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/vaccine/index.html