Further testing finds variant from U.K. in 5 B.C. schools
SURREY — Students or staff at five public schools in British Columbia have tested positive for the faster-spreading COVID-19 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom, health officials said Sunday.
A statement from the Fraser Health authority says it is working closely to manage exposures at four schools in Surrey and one in the Delta School District.
A statement from the Surrey School District to parents says the strain that originated in the U.K. at two of the schools were connected to positive cases dating back to Jan. 26 because testing for the variants take longer than the standard COVID-19 test.
The three-week delay is too long, said Sarah Otto, a professor in evolutionary biology at the University of B.C.
“We expect it to double every eight to 10 days, and so for every eight- to 10-day delay there’s potentially twice as many other people who have caught it and not know about it.”
The Fraser Health statement says it is working to identify any more connected variant cases to ensure immediate isolation and case management to stop further transmission.
“The variant strain can transmit more quickly and easily but does not seem to cause more severe illness, nor interfere with the effectiveness of vaccines, nor affect our ability to test for the virus,” the statement says.
The schools involved are Woodward Hill Elementary, A.H.P. Matthew Elementary, Kwantlen Park Secondary and Tamanawis Secondary School in Surrey, along with Hellings Elementary School in Delta.
The authority’s statement says only those staff and students who have been identified as close contacts of the patients need to be tested and they have been notified.
All the schools remain open.
Jordan Tinney, superintendent of the Surrey School District, tweeted notices late Saturday that had been sent to parents at the schools saying two classes and more than 20 people have been told to stay home at Woodward Hill.
It says three people each at Tamanawis high and Matthew elementary were direct contacts to those infected at each school and they’ve been directed to self-isolate and get tested.
A notice sent to parents on Saturday by the Delta School District says it received additional information that a person who attended Hellings elementary between Feb. 2 and 4 has tested positive for a variant.
There have been no other confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the school since the exposure, it says.
“Even though more than 14 days have passed since that exposure, out of an abundance of caution, Fraser Health reached out directly to one close contact of the individual with instructions for them to self-isolate and get tested for COVID-19,” the statement says.
A statement from the BC Teachers’ Federation says the government and health officials need to counter the new threat to the safety of schools.
The union says school districts need the authority to go beyond the established health and safety guidelines when necessary.
“This will help keep people in schools safe, but also prevent the variants of concern from spreading to vulnerable adults living in students’ homes,” says the statement from president Teri Mooring.
“We also need to see widespread rapid testing when a COVID-19 variant of concern shows up in schools. This is not the time to be conservative with testing.”
Otto said the discovery of the variant is a call to the community and residents around those schools to ramp up their protections.
This would be the time to restrict visits to the store, double mask, mask outdoors and maintain a heightened level of caution, she said.
“There’s some chance that we can stop the variant from establishing in British Columbia and that means in these areas we all have to have higher vigilance.”
She said every week that the variants remain isolated in those community pockets is another week of vaccinations and saving lives.
Several health officials have warned that a third wave could be looming if the more contagious variants take hold.
Boeing has recommended that airlines ground all 777s with the type of engine that blew apart after takeoff from Denver this weekend, and most carriers that fly those planes said they would temporarily pull them from service.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration ordered United Airlines to step up inspections of the aircraft after one of its flights made an emergency landing at Denver International Airport Saturday as pieces of the casing of the engine, a Pratt & Whitney PW4000, rained down on suburban neighbourhoods. None of the 231 passengers or 10 crew were hurt, and the flight landed safely, authorities said. United is among the carriers that has grounded the planes.
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement Sunday that based on an initial review of safety data, inspectors “concluded that the inspection interval should be stepped up for the hollow fan blades that are unique to this model of engine, used solely on Boeing 777 airplanes.”
Dickson said that would likely mean some planes would be grounded — and Boeing said they should be until the FAA sets up an inspection regime. Japan ordered the planes out of service, according to the financial newspaper Nikkei, while noting that an engine in the same family suffered trouble in December.
Boeing said there were 69 777s with the Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines in service and another 59 in storage.
United had 24 of the planes in service; it is the only U.S. airline with the engine in its fleet, according to the FAA. Two Japanese airlines have another 32 that are being pulled while Asiana Airlines grounded nine, seven of which were in service, until Boeing establishes a plan to fix the problems. Korean Air said it was discussing whether to ground 16 aircraft, six of which are in service.
“We are working with these regulators as they take actions while these planes are on the ground and further inspections are conducted by Pratt & Whitney,” Boeing said in a statement issued Sunday, referring to American and
Japanese regulators.
The engine maker said it was sending a team to work with investigators.
The emergency landing this past weekend is the latest trouble for Boeing, which saw its 737 Max planes grounded for more than a year after two deadly crashes in 2019 and is suffering amid the huge reduction in air travel due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Max planes began returning to the skies late last year — a huge boost for the aircraft maker, which lost billions during the grounding because it has been unable to deliver new planes to customers.
Video posted on Twitter from Saturday’s emergency showed the engine fully engulfed in flames as the plane flew through the air. Freeze frames from different video taken by a passenger sitting slightly in front of the engine and also posted on Twitter appeared to show a broken fan blade in the engine.
Passengers, who were headed to Honolulu, said they feared the plane would crash after an explosion and flash of light, while people on the ground saw huge chunks of the aircraft pour down, just missing one home and crushing a truck. The explosion, visible from the ground, left a trail of black smoke in the sky.
The U.S. National Transportation
Safety Board said that two of the engine’s fan blades were fractured and the remainder of the fan blades “exhibited damage.” But it cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions about what happened.
United says it will work closely with the FAA and the NTSB “to determine any additional steps that are needed to ensure these aircraft meet our rigorous safety standards and can return to service.”
The NTSB said the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were transported to its lab in Washington so the data can be analyzed. NTSB investigations can take up to a year or longer, although in major cases the agency generally releases some investigative material midway through the process.
Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said an engine in the PW4000 family suffered trouble on a Japan Airlines 777 flying to Tokyo from Naha on Dec. 4. The airline has said the plane had engine trouble after takeoff and returned to Naha. An inspection showed damage to the engine case and missing fan blades, according to the airline. Stricter inspections were ordered in response.
Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways will stop operating a combined 32 planes with that engine, Nikkei reported.