TORONTO – No certainty but many unknowns. It is a real leap in the dark that the students of Ontario are preparing to do tomorrow when, for the first time after the Christmas holidays, schools will reopen amid a thousand doubts.
There are four provinces in all in which tomorrow we return to school: in addition to Ontario also in Quebec, Manitoba and Nova Scotia will resume lessons in presence while the wave of Covid, fueled by the contagious Omicron variant, continues to spread. The numbers of the rest do not lie. In the hospital, for Covid, 3,595 people are currently hospitalized, those in the intensive care units are 579 while within twenty-four hours the deaths were 40.
Public health experts, parents and officials agree that learning in schools is best for children, but at the same time schoolboards, families and unions say that there is an increase in staff absences on the horizon due to the virus. But the problem is not limited to teachers. At risk – without the necessary measures – children are also put who, in addition to being able to contract Covid-19, will become the vectors of the dreaded virus potentially infecting parents and grandparents.
There is little to rest assured, in short, especially because the “valid measures” announced by the government at the moment remain theoretical. During his conference on Wednesday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Ontario is looking forward to receiving “up to 119 million rapid antigen tests, HEPA filters and N95 masks.” And while masks are considered protective, many doubts hover over HEPA filters.
On its website, the Public Health Agency of Canada states that the effectiveness of their air filtration to reduce the transmission of Covid-19 “has not yet been proven”.
Meanwhile, parents will not be notified of any infections identified in their child’s class until cases reach a level of 30%. A cocktail of elements, this, which certainly will not make parents sleep peacefully.
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has released some details about its plan for tomorrow’s return: “When schools become aware of a case confirmed by PCR or rapid antigen testing, only the classes directly affected will be notified – reads the website – while individual classes will continue to receive information on the case of Covid-19, the virus alerts page will no longer be updated.”
“The Ministry of Education has announced that, given the widespread transmission of Omicron and changes to the provincial approach to testing, schools and childcare workers are no longer required to report positive cases to families or if an individual is absent for symptoms associated with Covid-19 – is what the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) posted on its website – going beyond the Ministry’s reporting expectation, if the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) is informed of a positive case of Covid-19 (via rapid antigen test (RAT) or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test) involving a school member, the class(s) will be notified only as a courtesy.”
Never, as now, the return to school is taking place among a thousand unknowns. The only certainties – alas negative – are the exponential increase in infections and the inertia of the provincial government that has done nothing yet in a serious way to guarantee safe schools for children. After all, since the beginning of the pandemic, only two years have passed.
