Toronto Public Health has declared COVID-19 outbreaks at three more schools

Toronto Public Health has declared outbreaks at three additional schools, bringing the total number of Toronto schools with an outbreak to 16. The city is also investigating 120 COVID-19 infections in schools.

An outbreak is defined by the province as two or more confirmed cases within a school that have an epidemiological link and no other reasonable source of infection in at least one of the infections.

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TPH tweeted that Westway Junior Public School, Immaculate Conception Catholic School and St. Elizabeth Catholic School were the latest Toronto schools with two or more confirmed, linked COVID-19 cases.

An outbreak is declared over when 14 days have passed with no additional linked cases, and there are no further sick people connected to the originally infected cohort.

1/5: Our team has identified 2+ #COVID19 cases linked within Westway Junior Public School, Immaculate Conception Catholic School & St. Elizabeth Catholic School. This means that we’ve declared outbreaks in these settings.

— Toronto Public Health (@TOPublicHealth) October 5, 2021

Currently, all Toronto schools and daycares are open. Local public health units work with schools to determine if facilities should be closed to gain control of an outbreak.

Across the province, Ontario reported 250 new school-related COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, which makes up nearly 60% of the province’s total new cases of 429. More than 230 of today’s new school-related cases were in students.

Update on #COVID19 in TO child care & school settings: as of October 4 at 2 p.m. there are:
🔎32 active investigations in child care & 120 in schools
🏫0 site dismissals
🧪3 confirmed outbreaks in child care & 16 in schools
➡More info on #COVID19 in TO: https://t.co/SkOS47Xggr pic.twitter.com/t8ugIhXxvT

— Toronto Public Health (@TOPublicHealth) October 5, 2021

As of October 5, six Ontario schools are closed because of COVID-19 outbreaks, and 796 schools are reporting active cases, down from more than 800 last week. The majority of infections are among students, with 2,329 total infections being documented in students since the beginning of the school year.

In response to school-related infections, the province announced that they would be deploying rapid testing on a volunteer basis in schools within communities with high transmission and low vaccination rates.