sunzu said "2 more cases at VMHS! That’s 4 cases within the same incubation period how many more positives before public health and BSD declare outbreak has occurred. Dr Roussin said the other day that 2 cases in a school is an outbreak. "
An outbreak in a school is declared when there is two or more cases with evidence of transmission within the school setting between those cases.
When community transmission is high, there will be cases in schools and often multiple cases. This is especially true of high schools, as they tend to be large.
It's like the Maple Leaf problem back in the summer - there was a lot of cases at Maple Leaf, but it wasn't being caught at the workplace (I've heard rumours of a few isolated exceptions, but nothing substantive).
Anyway, Dr. Roussin does field a question about schools a couple of days ago. I'll link to it below so you can hear it for yourself (in case I mess up the time index thing, it starts at about the 32:00 mark).
(I wanted to provide some context too for the specific question Dr. Roussin has been asked. There's been documents circulation on social media this past week which suggests the criteria for declaring a school outbreak has been modified. I'm not convinced they have been modified as much as clarified and with more precise instructions. So that's what the reporter is specifically asking about.)