‘Stay the course’, says Surrey’s superintendent as COVID-19 exposures drop

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Surrey’s superintendent is enthralled by the dramatic drop off of COVID-19 cases recently, and he hopes it stays that way as the province moves towards phase 2 of its reopening plan next week.

Superintendent Jordan Tinney says cases are way down, and far fewer exposure notices are coming home to parents of children in his city’s schools.

He says the good news comes with more than 90 per cent of Surrey school staff receiving at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.

“Health is a person’s individual choice, but from a school district perspective, we certainly have seen that once vaccines started rolling out, the numbers just fell off a cliff. So, whether that’s solely the amount of vaccines or just the actual restrictions taking effect, I’m sure it’s a combination, but it certainly has been a big, big impact for us,” Tinney says.

My best COVID tweet of the year. Today’s info from our partners @Fraserhealth awesome news. #sd36learn #inittogether @Surrey_Schools @whiterockcity @CityofSurrey may the trend continue pic.twitter.com/NiKa32a5Ml

— Jordan Tinney (@jordantinney) June 12, 2021

Tinney says it was a much different story earlier in the pandemic, when exposure notices seemed to be a daily occurrence.

“Some days we would have well over 20 individual school exposures, and in some cases over 100 self isolations of individual people,” he says.

However, Tinney says we still need to keep pushing to keep those numbers down.

“[We need to] stay the course.”

He says right now, the goal is to have 100 per cent face-to-face instruction for students in September, but Tinney’s waiting to hear more from the province on Phase 2 of its reopening plan.

“[We’re] anticipating that it will bring more information for education, and that information will set the stage for September,” he says.