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NDP Education Critic Sarah Hoffman shows a leaked document from an AHS employee on Friday, Oct. 8. (Alberta NDP)
"completely immoral," says NDP

UCP claps back after NDP shares leaked AHS document showing school COVID outbreaks

Oct 8, 2021 | 6:38 PM

A leaked document suggests there have been significant COVID-19 outbreaks at many central Alberta schools over the last month.

The opposition NDP shared the document Friday afternoon after it was leaked to them by an AHS employee, they say. It lists 170 outbreaks active as of 4 p.m.,Tuesday, Oct. 5.

The document also shows outbreaks at other types of facilities in Central Zone, though the most alarming numbers are connected to schools. It also lists confirmed organisms from testing, and even the specific variant of COVID.

The document can be seen in its entirety further down this page.

However, Alberta Health Services issued this statement Friday evening seemingly refuting some of the numbers shown:

— The Central Zone Summary of Declared Outbreaks is an internal document used by AHS Central Zone for outbreak management planning & operational purposes. Info on outbreaks is shared with Alberta Health through other mechanisms—this document is not distributed to government.

The document is a comprehensive list of sites under investigation in Central Zone, including open COVID-19 outbreaks and other illnesses, such as gastro-intestinal illnesses.

For schools, this include outbreaks based on 10 per cent absenteeism from respiratory illnesses. The case numbers listed are not all COVID-19 cases. The case numbers include confirmed COVID-19 cases, and also all students absent from school due to illness and other reasons.

As an example, since the outbreak began at Bentley School on Sept. 27, there was a 13% absence rate, with approx. 65 students absent from school (illness or other reason). Since the school year started, the school has had a total of 17 confirmed COVID-19 cases among students

The list of facilities on outbreak changed significantly on Oct. 6 after the Government of Alberta announced on Oct. 5 that Alberta would be moving back to a case-based definition for outbreaks in schools.

The change in definition of an outbreak – from 10 per cent absenteeism for respiratory illness to 10 or more confirmed COVID-19 cases at a school – resulted in about 164 school outbreaks being closed on Oct. 6, and subsequently removed from the school outbreaks list.

The AHS case investigation and contact tracing team provides COVID-19 case and outbreak data to Alberta Health. —

Initially, the NDP said it was questioning why the governing United Conservatives had kept these numbers under wraps, even from schools themselves, as well as students, staff and families. They emphasized too that blame is squarely on the UCP, not schools nor Alberta Health Services.

“Jason Copping and Adriana LaGrange had this information and they covered it up. They hid it from the students, staff and families at these schools. That is gross negligence,” says Sarah Hoffman, NDP Critic for Education.

“Since the beginning of the school year, the UCP refused to contact-trace cases of COVID-19 in schools and they didn’t require close contacts to isolate. Now we know they deliberately covered up information gathered by AHS about the spread of COVID-19 in schools.”

On Oct. 6, when the UCP changed how it was reporting cases in schools, hundreds were suddenly listed as being on alert or having an outbreak.

Many schools that are considered outbreaks by AHS on Tuesday, Hoffman adds, were not listed as outbreaks by the UCP the next day. Previously, schools were only reporting when they reached 10 per cent absenteeism, but that didn’t mean all absences were due to COVID.

The government’s reporting gets less specific, but indicates that as of Oct. 8, 62 schools in Central Zone are on Alert for 2-4 cases, 44 are on Alert for 5-9 cases, and 19 have a declared outbreak with 10+ cases.

The entire leaked document can be seen below:

The NDP said their demands include the government immediately releasing similar reports for the North, South, Edmonton, and Calgary Zones, plus a commitment from the UCP to publicly update them daily.

“It’s completely immoral for Adriana LaGrange to lie to Albertans about the spread of this dangerous virus in our schools. Jason Copping was supposed to give Albertans a new start on the Health file but it’s clear that he is just as complicit as Tyler Shandro,” Hoffman says.

“Copping and LaGrange must both apologize to Albertans for their dishonesty. But most importantly the cover-up has got to end.”

“It is unfortunate that the Opposition has either misunderstood or misrepresented the facts around COVID-19 in our schools, especially when their actions might needlessly cause fear for parents, teachers and students. The safety of our schools has always been our top priority throughout the pandemic,” says Nicole Sparrow, Press Secretary, Alberta Education.

“Alberta Education continues to work closely with Alberta Health and Dr. Hinshaw’s team to monitor the impacts of COVID on our schools. We will continue to listen to the advice of our Chief Medical Officer and do what is necessary to ensure a safe and successful school year.”

In their release, as per the leaked document, the NDP list three schools thought to have major outbreaks, including Bentley School at 66 cases, Ponoka Elementary with 89 cases, and Stettler Elementary with 110.

Sparrow says as of Oct. 5, Bentley actually had nine, Ponoka had 14, and Stettler had seven.

The NDP also named Tofield School and Chester Ronning School in their release, but those school had no cases on Oct. 5, according to the UCP.

As of Oct. 8, however, Tofield School is listed by Alberta Health as having an alert for 2-4 cases. That’s in contrast to the 67 noted in the leaked document.