Toronto’s all-male Upper Canada College says it is moving all classes online for at least a week and urging its student body to seek COVID-19 testing after reporting six cases in the past six days.
The elite private school with more than 1,100 students earlier announced it was aware of six cases of COVID-19 among students in primary and secondary grades and is now taking steps to curb the risk of further transmission.
“As a precautionary measure to safeguard students, employees and the broader community, UCC has taken the voluntary decision to move to a remote learning schedule until next week,” the school told CP24. “The school has also encouraged students, families and employees to consider participating in a voluntary testing program facilitated by the Hospital for Sick Children.”
A mobile COVID-19 testing unit was seen on the campus grounds on Tuesday.
The school says that Toronto Public Health (TPH) has advised that there is no evidence of transmission of the virus within the school.
“There have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the school as a result of transmission at UCC nor has TPH recommended closing UCC for outbreak or any other reason.”
Toronto Associate Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vinita Dubey said that since Feb. 25, 12 people connected to Upper Canada College have tested positive for COVID-19.
“The majority of people who tested positive have had close contact with someone in a community or household setting,” she said in a statement.
Dubey said the school will decide whether to resume in person operations once they obtain the results of voluntary school-wide testing.
COVID-19 infection numbers among private schools in Ontario are not normally disclosed.
Across more than 4,800 publicly funded schools in Ontario, there were 840 with at least one active case on Monday morning, and 23 were closed.
More than 10 per cent of the province’s known active caseload of COVID-19 is made up of public school students.
