Hamilton summer camps close early due to COVID outbreaks a week before schools resume
Recent outbreaks have closed some Hamilton summer camps early, just as school is around the corner.
West Highland Church's summer day camp had 11 cases Monday, including 10 in attendees.
The church's director of children's ministries said in an email that the camp was told on Aug. 19 about campers in one family testing positive for COVID.
The children were asymptomatic but went in for testing due to a learned exposure outside of the summer camp," said Kim Beaman, noting public health was in touch with all close contacts.
The camp was closed immediately to stop the spread of the virus."
Three other recent camp outbreaks include Today's Family Backyard Camp at George L. Armstrong Elementary School on Concession Street, which has four attendee cases; the MJM Equestrian Centre's summer camp has two attendee cases; and a fourth outbreak was at the city-run Camp Kidaca, with two attendee cases, but it was declared over on Aug. 27.
Public health is investigating the outbreaks.
At the city's Camp Kidaca, all persons deemed a close contact to the known cases have been notified and requested to self-isolate," said an email from public health spokesperson James Berry, noting the camp is still running. Parents should continue to monitor their child's health."
At MJM Equestrian Centre, a camper's parent tested positive during rapid testing at their workplace, said camp co-ordinator Jennifer Baic in an email. The family then got tested, leading to the camper's positive result.
The nine other children in the camper's cohort were contacted for testing, leading to another case, Baic added. (The camp, which included a mix of indoor and outdoor activities, divided all their participants into groups of nine to help manage contact between cohorts, she said.)
Though the outbreak was declared Aug. 26, the campers who tested positive attended the camp the week of Aug. 16 to 20.
Our camp finished with Week 8 as of Aug. 27, and due to the fact that the outbreak was related to Week 7, we were not required to close by public health," Baic said.
The CEO of Today's Family said the cohort involved in the outbreak at George L. Armstrong school shut down early due to the outbreak. Marni Flaherty declined to provide details on the cohort citing privacy, but said the children were school age."
She noted that participants spend about equal time indoors and outdoors in the camp. Children are asked screening questions regularly and if they fail the screen, they're sent for testing. If a test returns positive, the children are removed from the program.
With schools reopening in a week, McMaster University's Jeffrey Pernica said that while he wasn't familiar with the details of the camp outbreaks, the risk of children getting COVID does not outweigh the benefits of in-person schooling.
For the vast majority of our children, going to school is the safer choice because the majority of children who get COVID-19 have mild or no symptoms," said the associate professor in pediatrics.
He added that it's important to address disparities in vaccination rates across postal codes to protect all.
If (vaccination) is patchy, then what happens is that you get little explosions of disease in the under-vaccinated area, which then percolates out to the rest," Pernica said. That is bad news not only for the people who live in those areas and the children that go to school in those areas, but for the health-care system as a whole."
Maria Iqbal is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator covering aging. Reach her via email: miqbal@thespec.com.