COVID-positive student at Kitchener elementary school 'probable' variant case

A student at a Kitchener elementary public school who has tested positive for COVID-19 is a close contact of another person who has a "variant of concern."

The student attends W.T. Townshend Public School. The class has been asked to self-isolate at home, but there is no outbreak declared at the school.

The region's medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang says public health has started case and contact management and parents of students in the class are being contacted Friday.

The Waterloo Region District School Board says on its website that public health has indicated "current health and safety measures including masking, social distancing, and sanitizing provide the appropriate layers of protection against the COVID-19 variants of concern."

Wang noted there are now 14 cases of COVID-19 in the region where there are variants of the virus. That's up from four reported during the regional COVID-19 media briefing a week ago on Feb. 5.

Only one cases has been identified as a specific variant, and that's the first case reported in the region of a woman who screened positive for the variant first discovered in the U.K. That case was reported Jan. 29.

Wang has said previously that once a test comes back positive for COVID-19, then some are screened again to see if it may have a "variant of concern" and then further testing is done to see which variant it is.

Wang said seven of the 14 cases have a link to international travel.