B.C.’s top doctor says the province will learn from the COVID-19 outbreak at École de l’Anse-au-sable in Kelowna, which has now grown to five cases.

“And if there are things that come to light that will help reduce potential for this happening in other schools then absolutely we will be looking at how we can expand those measures to every school,” Dr. Bonnie Henry said.

“We learn from every cluster and we learn from every outbreak and we’ve seen this from our long term care how we approach outbreaks in long term care. We learned a lot very early on. So this is our first school outbreak and we will learn from it.”

Henry notes there have been 213 exposure events in the province’s 2,000-plus schools to go with six clusters where more than one person had been exposed to COVID-19. An outbreak, she noted, is declared where there has been transmission of the virus within the school.

During a media briefing on Thursday, Henry confirmed that both staff and students at the K-to-12 school have tested positive. She also said an investigation began on Sunday as the first positive case was identified over the weekend, but it was not publicly reported on by Interior Health until Tuesday.

IHA said then the first person who tested positive for COVID-19 was at the school on Oct. 13, 14, and 15.

Henry notes right now, there are 160 people at the school who are self-isolating for 14 days, but she is confident that health officials have identified all of the people who might have been exposed.

Asked if the school could be shut down, Henry said it is possible, but given what she knows about the outbreak it would be ‘unlikely’.

“The school health officer in Kelowna is leading on this with the school making sure that we are doing a detailed investigation that we do for all outbreaks,” Henry said. “Right now they are confident that they have addressed people who have been exposed.”

“If the investigation shows there have been other exposures that come to light then [closing the school] might be an option, or maybe another cohort may need to isolate.”

Henry also noted the majority of exposures in schools have been in the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health regions, where most school are located given the population density.

“While it’s concerning that we have an outbreak, what I think is positive about this is that we have been monitoring all of the exposure events and we have had very little transmission in the schools, and public health has been working with the school community across the province to keep it that way,” she said.

The province today announced a new single-day record 274 cases of COVID-19, 203 in the Fraser Health Authority, with Dr. Henry saying much of the recent rise in cases is linked to ‘high risk’ social events like weddings and funerals.

Henry also says there will be increased inspections of safety plans in workplaces noting there has been transmission of the virus in lunch rooms, carpools, and during workplace social interactions.