St. FX president says students can defer exams to January amid COVID-19 outbreak

Exams are on track to begin Friday at St. Francis Xavier University amid a COVID-19 outbreak, but the Antigonish, N.S., school's president says all students have the option to postpone until the new year.

On Thursday, 38 new cases were reported, bringing to 59 the total number related to the St. FX outbreak. The province said more cases are expected in the coming days. Some of the 38 cases are part of Thursday's official count and some are from Wednesday.

University president Andy Hakin said in an interview Thursday that the school's concern is for its students and it is following all suggestions from Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief medical officer of health.

Since campus was closed Thursday due to a snow storm, exams will begin Friday. Hakin said it's up to professors to decide whether tests will be offered in person or online.

But Hakin said if any students are uncomfortable with their exam options they can defer until the end of January. While that may seem a little strange, Hakin said it's actually a "known practice" the school has used before when exam dates are cancelled by bad weather.

"That's the option we will be giving our students as we move forward. Again, all in an effort just to try and remove some of the anxiety that they're feeling," Hakin said.

Strang told a news briefing Tuesday that he was expecting a cluster of cases at St. FX related to the X-Ring ceremony and a number of sanctioned and unsanctioned events held over the past weekend.

Hakin said the sanctioned campus events followed Public Health rules, which allow people to have their masks off in a crowded area if they're eating or drinking. He said his main concern comes from off-campus parties where no regulations were in place, but had no information on how many events there might have been.

"I have to put store in the fact that the investigations that Public Health will go through will give us the information we need to better understand how things went wrong," Hakin said.

Nova Scotia Health issued more than 30 exposure notifications late Wednesday in the eastern zone related to the situation.

They include various times and locations across the St. FX campus beginning last week, including this past weekend's X-Ring ceremony. There are also multiple exposure notices for many businesses in Antigonish, N.S. The full list is available here.

No secondary transmission in community

A news release from the province Thursday said there has been no evidence of spread in classrooms or residences, and no secondary transmission in the community.

The investigation has found the majority of coronavirus spread happened in smaller, private gatherings. Most cases are related to those who attended activities late last week both on and off campus.

The release also said the cases are mostly young people who are fully vaccinated. St. FX has reported that about 95 per cent of its student body is vaccinated.

"I ask everybody to kind of take a deep breath. Public Health has lots of experience in this, we will take this day by day and put the appropriate things in as we need to," Strang told CBC's Information Morning on Thursday.

He said the situation is not serious enough to consider restricting travel in or out of the Antigonish area, and while case numbers will continue climbing, so far only mild symptoms are being reported.

Many families and friends who attended X-Ring events last weekend have since returned home to other provinces, and Strang said they've alerted public health teams around the country about the St. FX cluster. As of Thursday, Strang said there's been one or two cases identified in Prince Edward Island and a couple in Ontario related to the Antigonish spike.

Strang said he's seen a video taken during an on-campus dance in the Bloomfield Centre's MacKay Room where various students have told CBC most people weren't masked. But he's less concerned about that event since proof-of-vaccination policies were enforced, and said the various off-campus house parties with more than the 25-person limit were more worrying.

The key message for students right now is to stay in Antigonish or on campus if they live in residence, and not travel home until their exams are finished in about two weeks, Strang said. By that time, he said the community should be "well through" the outbreak.

Antigonish Mayor Laurie Boucher also told Information Morning on Thursday that people are nervous and "very concerned" about the COVID-19 case numbers because these are some of the highest the area has seen.

Boucher said the large number of restaurant exposures shows how much business came through their doors over X-Ring weekend, which she said has grown into a huge event to rival graduation and is a major boost for the local economy.

Many of the businesses have closed for the next couple of days for various reasons, including cleaning and disinfecting or allowing staff to be tested, Boucher said.

She said the "rumour mill" is speeding up and while it's not always easy to sit back and wait for direction from Public Health, that's the best thing for the community right now.

"Everybody has their own personal responsibility to monitor their symptoms," Boucher said.

Snow cancels in-person exams

In-person exams were set to begin Thursday, but a massive dumping of snow cancelled those. Online exams were to go ahead as scheduled.

The Public Health mobile testing unit will be on scene Thursday at St. FX University's Keating Centre, located at 110 Convocation Blvd. in Antigonish between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. AT.

There's no need to make an appointment, according to a news release from the province.