St. Wilfrid School in Calgary placed on watch status after 6 cases of COVID confirmed

Calgary school on watch status There are now six schools dealing with outbreaks of COVID-19 in Alberta, and one Calgary school has been elevated to watch status.

Calgary — Six cases of COVID-19 have now been confirmed at St. Wilfrid School in Calgary, making it the first in Alberta to be placed on watch status, officials confirmed Tuesday.

As a result, 65 students are now in isolation.

The cases — which all involve students — were contracted in the community. There is no evidence of transmission within the school.

A school is placed on watch status when five or more cases are identified in the previous 14 days.

Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) officials are now working with AHS to determine what steps need to now be taken.

The school is scheduled to be open on Wednesday and letters have been sent home to parents.

Outbreaks — when there are between two and four confirmed cases of COVID-19 — continue at six other schools in Alberta:

As of Tuesday afternoon, there have been 51 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 40 schools where an individual attended while infectious.

"Unfortunately we kind of saw this coming down the line even in March because we didn't hear for six months in the summer, we didn't hear a proactive approach," said Wing Li with Support our Students Alberta. "It sounds like the government is being very reactive... so unfortunately we're not surprised."

During the regular update Tuesday, the province announced 124 new cases of COVID-19, marking the seventh day in a row 100 or more cases had been confirmed. That brings Alberta's active case count to 1,491.

The majority of Alberta's cases remain in Edmonton and Calgary with 584 and 478, respectively. The city of Edmonton is still under the province's watch with an active case rate of 57.2 per 100,000 people.

No new deaths were reported Tuesday.

There are 39 patients in hospital, including seven in ICU.