The province has made some adjustments to mandatory isolation rules for kids.

Alberta's chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw made the announcement on Thursday (Oct.29), saying they want to get kids back into daycare or the classroom as quickly and safely as possible. 

One of the changes was to remove a runny nose and sore throat from the list of symptoms that require mandatory isolation for children.  

"These symptoms by themselves are very poor indicators of whether a child has the virus," said Hinshaw. 

She stressed this is only the case for children who have not been in contact with a person confirmed to have COVID-19.

The second change addresses how long children should stay at home based on how many symptoms they are experiencing.

This does not include the list of core isolation symptoms, which are coughing, fever, shortness of breath and loss of taste or smell. Any child with one of these symptoms must self-isolate for 10 days or receive a negative test result before resuming other activities.

However, guidelines are being streamlined for all other symptoms on the list, such as headaches.

If a child has one of the lesser symptoms, they will now only have to stay home for 24 hours. If they have two symptoms, testing is recommended and the child should stay home until symptoms go away or they test negative.

"To use a practical example, if a child has just a headache, they should stay home for the day and if things improve, they can return to school as soon as they're feeling able to do so," explained Hinshaw. "But if they have a headache and a runny nose, then they should stay home and either get tested or stay home until the symptoms go away completely." 

These changes come into effect on Monday (Nov.2) and the next update will not be provided until Tuesday (Nov.3).

Written by Jasmine Graf