OLDS — Olds College has confirmed a second positive case of the COVID-19 virus at its facilities.
“During the late evening of Oct. 28, 2020 the college was informed of a positive case of COVID-19 in our campus community,” a post on the college’s website says.
“This is the second confirmed case of COVID-19 within the Olds College community. The impacted individual is self-isolating off-campus according to AHS guidelines.
“The college has enacted a deep sanitization of all rooms the individual had contact with.”
On its Facebook page, the college said “an email message was sent to all members of the Olds College community earlier today. No other details will be released at this time to respect confidentiality.”
The first case was reported by the college on Oct. 19.
At that time, the college said that person was self-isolating according to AHS guidelines and lives off-campus.
That first individual is now listed as having recovered from the virus.
According to the college’s website, exposure could have occurred from Oct. 12-19 in Centennial Village, Oct. 19 in the Elements Dining Hall, Oct. 15 in Duncan Marshall Place and Oct. 14 at the CLC Fitness Centre.
The college said public health officials were conducting a thorough interview with the individual in order to determine who was in contact with them.
It is also providing information as requested by health officials, to assist with the contact tracing process.
In an email, Blayne Meek, the college’s director of corporate communications and marketing, said Olds College has put several COVID-19 measures in place “to create a safe learning/working environment for students and staff, including increased sanitization and cleaning, physical distancing protocols and engineering controls, daily health pre-screening completed by anyone coming on campus, and a mandatory mask directive.”
If staff or students are identified as a close contact of a confirmed COVID-19 case, health officials will contact them directly for follow up.
Meanwhile, others in the campus community are encouraged to continue practising physical distancing, regular hand washing and wearing masks while on campus.
If staff or students have not been identified as a close contact of a confirmed COVID-19 case but develop symptoms as listed on the daily screening tool, they're advised to self-isolate at home and complete the AHS COVID-19 online assessment tool or call Health Link at 811 as soon as possible to arrange for COVID-19 testing.
Olds College has created a COVID-19 dashboard that includes the latest details about confirmed cases among students, faculty and staff who are working and studying on-campus. That dashboard can be found on its website, oldscollege.ca/covid19.
