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COVID-19 UPDATE

School District 73 ups hygiene practices, while keeping tabs on COVID-19 development

Mar 4, 2020 | 4:18 PM

KAMLOOPS — School District 73 is keeping a close eye on how the COVID-19 situation is developing, and has plans in place in case the virus spreads further.

At this time, Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Trish Smillie says the province has told them the risk of school-aged children contracting the virus here is low.

In the meantime, SD 73 has been reiterating the importance of hand washing and hygiene to students and parents, while stressing that sick children should stay home.

“Several weeks ago we increased our contact surface cleaning in our facilities just to make sure our employees and students are safe, and take those extra precaution measures. And we’ll continue those and increase precautionary measures as advised by Interior Health.”

There are several countries under travel advisories, however Smillie says it won’t have an impact on student spring break trips, as this year there were no out-of-country trips planned by schools.

“We have a few trips that will be occurring in the next month that are within Canada, but we’re not considering those for cancellation at this time.”

The Kamloops-Thompson School District says it does have a plan in place should COVID-19 spread further, but measures of that magnitude wouldn’t take effect unless health authorities declared it an official pandemic.