VANCOUVER -- One of the latest people to catch COVID-19 in British Columbia is a teacher in the Lower Mainland, health officials revealed Thursday.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry did not reveal which school district the teacher works for, but said it's in the Fraser Health region that spans from Burnaby to Hope.
"All of the close contacts of that person have been notified by public health teams and none of the students are exposed," Henry said.
The incident is not being labelled an outbreak at the school because the teacher caught it through a social interaction off school grounds and doesn't appear to have passed it on to anyone at work.
"This is a contact of a contact of a known case, so we can trace back where it came from," Henry said.
The case was one of 20 announced by health officials on what happened to be the last day of in-class learning for the school year.
Henry said officials braced for the possibility of COVID-19 cases when deciding to allow students and teachers to return to classrooms for the last few weeks of the semester.
"We anticipated and planned for this potential," she said. "And we've been monitoring the situation very closely along with all the school districts and the Ministry of Education, and we've moved quickly when cases have been identified."
The latest COVID-19 infection is the second to have emerged since the return of in-class learning. Both involved adults, not students.
