'Heartbreaking': Edmonton-area NICU nurse frustrated after 7-year-old son contracts COVID-19 at school
While sitting in a staff meeting at an Edmonton-area hospital, a NICU nurse received confirmation her son tested positive for COVID-19.
Cheryl Duggan told CTV News Edmonton her seven-year-old only attended school for seven days when they were notified he may have been exposed to another positive student.
On Saturday, Duggan said he started developing COVID-19 symptoms including a high fever and cough. So she wasn't "too surprised" when her son's test came back positive.
“It’s just been heartbreaking to see my son and not be able to do anything to help him, and know that I just have to wait this out.”
Duggan explained If health measures were still in place at Alberta schools, she believes her son would have been protected and he wouldn’t have been exposed to COVID-19.
“Anything at this point is better than nothing,” she said.
“Contact tracing was a fundamental pillar of notification and mitigating spread of COVID in schools,” Wing Li, with Support Our Students Alberta, added.
Li told CTV News parents are just realizing the affects of having the health measures eliminated now that kids have been back in the class for just over a week.
“Not knowing when your child was exposed in a classroom or in a close setting at school is concerning,” Li said.
“We echo the call to reinstate contact tracing for schools. Public health needs to step in with their resources and their infrastructure. Schools don’t have the ability to do contact tracing, they’re not public health officials.”
Duggan explained to CTV News she feels frustrated with the current climate as she’s gone above and beyond to keep her family safe over the past 18 months.
“I feel that there’s a large population of kids that aren’t yet safe, so I’m choosing to speak up,” she said.
“My voice is for them and for the babies that I work with in my NICU and the people that cannot yet be vaccinated for whatever reason.”
The provincial website does not currently list COVID-19 outbreaks in schools.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Boeing's financial woes continue, while families of crash victims urge U.S. to prosecute the company
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.