SHA Explains How Outbreak Declared At School

Our story yesterday (April 28th) about an outbreak at St Michael’s School was called by some of our readers as misleading as the outbreak had been declared ten days earlier on April 18th.

To get around the confusion as to one site allegedly calling the outbreak being declared on the 18th and then another site declaring the outbreak on the 28th we got in touch with the Saskatchewan Health Agency (SHA) to explain the apparent discrepancies in the date the actual outbreak was declared.

The answer is that there was a suspected outbreak at the school but it was not until after contract tracing linked another case that an actual outbreak was declared on April 28th.

The statement form the SHA read:
On April 18, public health officials notified the school division about a case at St.Michael's Elementary School in Moose Jaw, which lead to a suspect outbreak being declared.

The resulting contact tracing investigation resulted in the identification of at least one additional case linked to the original case at the school. As a result, an outbreak was declared on April 28.

We thank our readers for pointing out the apparent date discrepancies to allow us to dig deeper to find answers.