Two COVID-19 cases at North Dundas District High School

nnMAPLE RIDGE – Officials with the Upper Canada District School Board announced that two cases of COVID-19 have been found at North Dundas District High School. The cases come less than a week after a case was diagnosed at Tagwi Secondary School in Avonmore.nnThe board did not release information if the cases were related to each other.nnContact tracing by the Eastern Ontario Health Unit is underway and people identified who may have had close contact with the infected have been contacted.n

“The school and health unit are taking all necessary steps to prevent the further spread of the virus in the school and in the community,” said UCDSB spokesperson April Scott-Clarke. “The school remains and operating on the regular daily schedule.”

nWhen asked if the cases were staff or students, Scott-Clarke said the board cannot disclose that information.nn”We cannot release further details about this at this time,” she said. “The Ministry reports if it is a staff or student on their website but we are not permitted to give out that information.”nnNo outbreak has been declared by the EOHU. A school is considered in an outbreak when two or more infected individuals whose cases are linked go to the same school. It is unknown the case at North Dundas is related to the one at Tagwi. That case, a student, was diagnosed on November 29th.nnThis is the third new case of COVID-19 in North Dundas since Friday. As of December 2nd there are no active COVID-19 infections in South Dundas, and there have been fewer than five cases total. Only one school, a French-Catholic school in Casselman (Sainte-Euphémie) is currently considered in an outbreak.nnThere are 130 active COVID-19 infections in the EOHU region, more than half are in Prescott-Russell. Since the pandemic began there have been 898 cases. Five people are currently hospitalized, none of those are in Intensive Care. Thirty-one people have died from the virus in the region.