MONTREAL -- Several schools in Montreal have shut their doors to students after new variant cases of COVID-19 were discovered among students and staff.
John F Kennedy high school joined a list of four EMSB schools to close on Friday, which already included Michelangelo International Elementary School in Riviere des Praries, MIND High School in the Plateau, and Lester B. Pearson High School in Montreal North.
Montreal public health sent a letter to Lester B. staff and students asking them to take a COVID-19 test before returning to class.
“Once those results come in, we will have a much clearer picture of which additional measures, if any, should be applied,” read the release, which said the variant cases were detected on March 15.
Earlier this week, two variant cases were discovered at Villa Maria high school in NDG, forcing that school to shut its doors until March 24.
According to Villa Maria, all teachers and personnel who came in contact with the people who tested positive were asked to quarantine.
Elsewhere in the city, Montreal public health will deploy a pilot project to vaccinate parents and school staff in an attempt to halt the spread of variants.
“We have a very small window of opportunity," said Montreal Health Director Dr. Mylène Drouin in a Friday press release.
For now, that program will only be deployed in parts of Cote-des-Neiges and in the city of Cote-St-Luc, “in an attempt to extinguish the fire," said Drouin.
Most of Quebec's UK variant cases have been reported in Montreal. On Friday evening, the city's tally sat at 323 cases of the UK variant, B.1.1.7. The variant has also been found in the Larentians (32 cases) Laval (29), Monteregie (18), Quebec City (12), the Eastern Townships (nine), and Lanaudiere (eight).
While the B.1.1.7. has become the most common variant in Quebec, the South African variant, B.1.351, has been found in 100 positive coronavirus cases in Abitibi-Tamiscamingue.
