More than 20,000 Edmonton students missed school with illnesses on Wednesday

More than three-quarters of Edmonton public schools have hit an illness absenteeism rate that triggers Alberta Health Services to investigate an infectious disease outbreak.

According to data posted online, more than 75 per cent of the division's 213 schools had more than 10 per cent of their students out of classes due to illness on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

On Wednesday, more than 20,000 Edmonton students were absent.

The school board has called an emergency meeting for Tuesday to ask provincial health officials for more clarity on how many kids must be sick before the province puts additional health measures in place.

"We are not considering a mask mandate as we continue to believe that decisions related to health need to be made by the chief medical officer of health and Alberta Health Services," school board chair Trisha Estabrooks said in an emailed statement Wednesday.

When a school reaches a 10 per cent illness absenteeism rate, it notifies Alberta Health Services, which will investigate if there is an outbreak.

Although it has previously released the numbers of school outbreaks by zone, Alberta Health Services would not release the data this week, and referred questions to Alberta Health.

Steve Buick, press secretary to Health Minister Jason Copping, did not respond to inquiries on Wednesday or Thursday.

Dr. James Talbot, an adjunct professor of public health at the University of Alberta, said the number of potential school outbreaks in Edmonton is well above normal compared to a pre-pandemic cold or flu season.

"That is a number I've never seen before," said Talbot, who served as Alberta's chief medical officer of health from 2012 to 2015 and has extensive knowledge of the province's tracking of school outbreaks.

The surge of sickness was predictable, Talbot said. Most babies and toddlers haven't had much exposure to infection in their lifetimes. Many of their school-age siblings were distancing and masking for most of the past couple of years, reducing their exposure.

Now that most public health measures have been eliminated from schools, Talbot said there is a surge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, colds, gastrointestinal maladies and COVID-19 making the rounds.

The risk, said Talbot, is to any child sick enough to need a bed in a pediatric intensive care unit. Rarely, these infections will make some children gravely ill, threatening access to the ICU for children undergoing cancer treatment or who suffer a traumatic mishap, he said.

"If hospitals are to be spared any kind of a surge, where we're going to need to wage that battle is in the schools," Talbot said.