Province says ‘no concerns have been raised’ by school district about air quality at Tantramar High
An area resident is raising concerns about air quality in schools after her 14-year-old son caught COVID-19 and became gravely ill.
Laura Beazley has two sons, both of them at Tantramar High. The youngest, a Grade 9 student, has Type 1 diabetes.
That condition makes people more likely to have serious complications with COVID-19, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Sure enough, when he returned to school in September — with mask mandates no longer in effect — he became sick with COVID, and his condition quickly deteriorated.
Medical ordeal
“The time from testing positive to being in full blown diabetic ketoacidosis was so fast, it was 17 hours,” Beazley said, noting that his sickness coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Fiona. “And he was in critical condition.”
Diabetic ketoacidosis is a condition that can lead to a coma or death. He recovered after being hospitalized twice, but has suffered from other “mysterious illnesses” following his recovery.
Listen to the interview that aired on CHMA FM on Dec. 14, 2022:
Beazley, whose family is fully vaccinated and boosted, says his story shows the provincial government should step up and ensure schools have clean air.
But a spokesperson for the Department of Education says “no concerns have been raised” by the school district about conditions at Tantramar High.
The Anglophone East School District and Tantramar High didn’t respond to queries from CHMA.
Last month, school principal Susan Lafford told parents that about one-third of students were absent daily because of illness, and that many staff were off sick.… Continue
Meet the candidates: Allison Butcher, running in Ward 3 (Central Sackville)
Allison Butcher was born and raised in Sackville and lived in Ottawa before returning to her hometown in 1998. She’s the mother of two teenage daughters, and for the past 20 years she has worked as a pre-school teacher. She’s been involved in municipal politics since 2016 and is currently in her second term as councillor.
Listen to CHMA’s Meet The Candidates interview with Allison Butcher, which took place by phone on November 9, 2022.
She is running in Ward 3, where residents will elect four councillors from a pool of nine candidates.
Along with Butcher, those candidates include Michael Tower, Alice Cotton, Josh Goguen, Virgil Hammock, Charles Harvey, Sana Mohamad, Saditya Pendurthi and Bruce Phinney. CHMA has interviewed all of them except for Charles Harvey, who declined an interview request, and Sana Mohamad, as we’re awaiting a response from that candidate.
CHMA is compiling all its election coverage in one place, for your convenience. For more candidate interviews and other local elections coverage, click here.
TRANSCRIPT Allison Butcher, Nov. 9, 2022:
CHMA: Allison Butcher, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us.
AB: Thank you.
CHMA: So for those who might not already know you, tell us a bit about yourself.
AB: So I’m Allison Butcher, I live in Sackville, and what will be Ward 3. I am a preschool teacher here in town and have been for about 20 years now.… Continue
‘You’re not making it’: Local cab companies feel the pinch of high fuel costs
Listen to Tantramar Report for Thursday, June 16, 2022:
Mt A shares its final COVID update for the school year
Mount Allison has 10 self-reported active cases of COVID-19 on campus, according to the school’s weekly COVID update released Tuesday. One of the cases is in a person living on campus, and the other nine are living off campus.
This is the third week in a row that Mount Allison’s self-reported active case count has dropped. At its highest point this year, on March 15, the school had 61 active cases reported. That week saw students, staff and faculty—some working off campus—report 102 more cases. But this past week, only 8 new cases were reported, bringing the cumulative total since January 3, 2022 to 400 cases.
The university is winding down its weekly community COVID-19 updates for now. The school announced that this week’s Tuesday Touchpoint newsletter would be the last for the term. It’s not clear if the school plans to restart the weekly missive in the fall, when students are back.
The school’s current fall plans include big changes, with the planned lifting of all COVID-19 measures. That includes the lifting of vaccination requirements for students, staff and faculty, and the removal of capacity limits and one-metre distancing in classrooms. Although vaccinations will no longer be required in the fall term, the school will continue to ask students, faculty, and staff to identify their vaccination status in Mount Allison’s online platform.… Continue
‘Deep concern about how the pandemic is being managed’: Local task force criticizes Higgs government
The Memramcook-Tantramar Community Task Force has published an open letter expressing “deep concern about how the pandemic is being managed” in New Brunswick.
The task force is a volunteer organization in the Sackville area created in response to COVID-19.
Their letter calls on the provincial government to “provide more incentives for people to get vaccinated,” reinstate masking in schools, and provide more information in weekly updates.
“We’ve heard from people who have loved ones who are considered more vulnerable to illness, who have been saying to us, they feel abandoned,” said task force co-chair Margaret Tusz-King in an interview.
That news comes as Public Health changes how cases of COVID-19 are reported.
The province has discontinued its online COVID-19 dashboard; instead, it has introduced new weekly reports on a government webpage called COVIDWATCH.
On Tuesday, the provincial government announced another nine COVID-related deaths – that’s a reduction compared to last week, when the province reported 13 deaths.
There have now been 358 COVID-related deaths since the pandemic began.
There were 78 confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations during the seven days that ended on Saturday.
That figure only reflects patients hospitalized for COVID symptoms, and it has increased by 31 compared to last week
There are nine people who are receiving intensive care, according to the latest report.… Continue
‘They feel abandoned’: Local task force criticizes Higgs government’s handling of COVID-19
Listen here to Tantramar Report for April 6, 2022:
COVID update: Mt A cases up to 33, more deaths and hospitalizations province-wide
There are 33 active cases of COVID-19 in the Mount Allison community, according to a weekly update released Tuesday by the university. That case count has doubled since last week, and is based on test results self-reported to the school from students, staff and faculty. 24 of the cases are located off campus, and 9 are in residence.
As of Tuesday, there have been 348 cases reported to the school since it started collecting data on January 3, 2022.
Provincial public health also released its weekly update on COVID-19 yesterday, showing an increase in hospitalizations for the second week in a row. There are now 13 more people in hospital, bringing the total to 142. The number of people on a ventilator has dropped by half, to 8.
Thirteen more people have died from COVID-19 in New Brunswick, bringing the total deaths to 349.
There were just over 3000 new cases identified in the past week with PCR lab testing, and another roughly 4500 identified with take home rapid test kits, but the province is warning that those results are less reliable than lab testing.
On the vaccination front, there were just over 2400 shots of a COVID-19 vaccine administered in the whole province in the past week. 227 were first shots, 685 were second shots, and 1529 were boosters. … Continue
Schools struggle with staff absenteeism, but role of COVID-19 unclear, says teachers’ union
New Brunswick lifted all remaining COVID-19 restrictions just as students returned to classes from March Break two weeks ago.
Some parents have welcomed the end of universal indoor masking at schools.
But others have called for the mandate to remain in place until at least the end of April, with a petition that had gathered nearly 1,500 virtual signatures by Monday.
Previously on CHMA, we heard from Kathleen Gadd, a Mount Allison University graduate and mother of three children, one of the petition’s co-authors.
She warned about issues including a wave of infections hitting the families of teachers and other staff who might be vulnerable to severe COVID.
Since then, reports have emerged of high rates of staff absenteeism, particularly at schools in the Moncton region.
For more on this story, CHMA spoke to Connie Keating, president of the New Brunswick Teachers Association and co-president of the New Brunswick Teachers Federation, the union representing teachers.
Keating is also a longtime teacher who studied at Mount Allison University. In an interview on Friday, she said absenteeism is a major issue across the province.
But it’s unclear whether COVID-19 is the culprit, she said, because reliable data isn’t available.
Self-reported COVID-19 cases decline at Mount Allison
The number of active COVID-19 cases at Mount Allison University has declined, according to self-reported case data which the university released this week.
There are currently 15 self-reported cases of COVID-19 in the university community, Mount A said Tuesday in its weekly update.
That’s a significant decline compared to last week, when the university reported a spike in cases.
Of the current active cases, eight are off-campus and seven are in residence.
The total number of cases in the university community reported since early January has reached 303, an increase of 27 compared to last week.
In its previous update, the university reported an overall week-over-week increase of 102 cases.
Public Health reports 16 deaths
Meanwhile, Public Health reported Tuesday that COVID-19 hospitalizations have shot up by 30 cases since last week’s update, bringing the total number to 129.
The number of people receiving intensive care reached 16, an increase of three compared to last week. There are five people on a ventilator, a decline of two.
The province also recorded 16 new COVID-19 related deaths over the past week, for a total death toll of 336 people in New Brunswick since the pandemic began.
New Brunswick lifted all remaining COVID-19 restrictions last week.
… Continue
Petition calls for indoor masking in NB schools until end of April, local residents divided
Children returned from March Break across New Brunswick on Monday just as the provincial government lifted all remaining COVID-19 restrictions.
An online petition is calling for the province to maintain universal indoor masking in schools until at least the end of April.
“Removing universal masking protection in schools will negatively impact any member of the school community who is at risk, which is counter to the principles of inclusion in New Brunswick schools,” the petition states.
“It puts families in the position of needing to remove children from school to protect their vulnerable family members.”
The petition had garnered more than 1,300 virtual signatures by Thursday.
For more on this story, CHMA spoke to Kathleen Gadd, one of the authors of the petition. She’s a Mount Allison University graduate, and a mother of three young children living in Miramichi.
“The school day represents a long exposure, if you happen to have somebody in the class who is contagious with COVID during the school day,” she said. “So the school, I think, is an important setting.”
CHMA reached out to local parents via social media, and they expressed conflicting views on the topic via Facebook.
“I worry that cases in schools are not being reported, and I also worry about the amount of kids who will be sent to school sick, because a parent cannot afford to take time off work,” said Danielle Pellerin, who has children in Grade 1 and Grade 5.… Continue