Kelowna daycare impacted by school outbreak

Photo: Contributed

Lakeshore Out of School Care, 4409 Lakeshore Road

Yet another Kelowna daycare has been impacted by COVID-19, illustrating the difficult task health authorities and contact tracers face while trying to contain an outbreak of the virus.

Lakeshore Out of School Care has been forced to modify their program after they learned at least one of the children attending it was also a student at Ecole De L'Anse-Au-Sable, which is currently closed due to an outbreak.

Manager Corina Jackson says she has been working with Interior Health since they discovered, through contact tracing, that one of the students had been exposed to COVID-19.

"They found out (the student) was at our facility so they wanted to know who was in contact with that child."

Jackson says the list added up to 12 students and two staff who were advised to self-isolate for 14 days, "we're done on Friday at midnight."

Jackson tells Castanet the after-school program organizers decided to separate the children into two separate groups and to try and keep the children in the same cohorts as school.

"We decided at the beginning of the year that we would be separating the students and keeping them in their own cohorts because we thought something like this might happen."

The after-school program has children between the ages of kindergarten and grade six who attend either Anne McClymont, Dorothea Walker or Ecole De L'Anse-Au-Sable. Jackson says one of the other staff members has been tested and has been cleared. 

While she says she was told not to get tested unless she started showing symptoms. "I'm doing the best I can, but this is all unknown territory for all of us."

Jackson says she has spent a great deal of time on the phone calling all of the parents individually to make sure they are aware of what is going on.

"Everything should be back to normal next week."  

According to Interior Health there are now 16 cases linked to the outbreak at École de L’Anse-au-sable and about 175 people are self-isolating for 14 days as a result.

Interior Health said Wednesday afternoon that there have been no additional exposures reported at Kelowna Secondary and St. Joseph schools.

Two other Kelowna daycares, Building Blocks Educare and Beyond Learning, has also closed due to the virus this week.

The Lakeshore Afterschool Program leases space from the Okanagan Mission Community Hall but it is the only program that is affected and all other programs and the mission tennis club continue to operate with covid safety protocols in place.