The COVID-19 outbreaks in Ontario elementary schools are at the height of the pandemic, surpassing the peak of the third wave when increasing cases forced schools across the province to switch to online learning afterward. April spring break.
The province reported 219 active outbreaks of COVID in elementary schools on Tuesday, a number of experts say indicating a need for greater protections to keep students in school and prevent further learning losses and disruptions for families.
And with some public health units already identifying the new and potentially more communicable Omicron variant connected to schools, experts emphasize that additional public health tools, including take-home COVID tests for students, are critical in this point in the pandemic, especially with elementary school students only. recently eligible for vaccinations.
“To protect in-person learning, we must do everything we can,” said Amy Greer, an epidemiologist at the University of Guelph. “We have tools at our disposal to make indoor environments, like schools, safer and we are not actively using them in a way that helps mitigate risk.”
On Monday, Toronto Public Health announced that it is investigating a case of the Omicron variant at Precious Blood Catholic School in Scarborough. And in southwestern Ontario, several schools are linked to a large cluster of COVID cases likely involving Omicron and are being investigated by the Middlesex-London Public Health Unit.
Ontario’s COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board is scheduled to release a scientific report on rapid tests, including in schools, on Wednesday.
Early this fall the province promised Publicly funded schools will have access to take-home COVID test kits, expanding existing programs in Toronto and Ottawa. The self-collection kits aim to encourage more students and staff to take samples, improving test assimilation and allowing faster contact tracing after a positive test, reducing the risk of school outbreaks.
During the same October announcement, a “test to stay” approach was launched for students using rapid antigen detection to help prevent school-wide layoffs.
Experts say both programs are being rolled out too slowly and unevenly across the province, with local public health units in charge of implementing the trial-to-stay program. And Greer, who holds a Canadian Research Chair in Population Disease Modeling, suggests that the province go further by introducing regular rapid tests for students given current high infection rates among elementary school-age children.
“We should implement rapid tests for students who attend school in person to routinely take them at home two or three times a week,” he said. “Detecting positives on (such tests) will reduce the risk of introducing (COVID) into the school setting.”
The province expects to complete shipments of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test kits to take home to school boards by this week. And before winter break, each student will receive five rapid antigen tests to use over the break.
The province has also said that in areas with a higher risk of possible spread of COVID, local Health units can offer rapid antigen detection. to schools for asymptomatic unvaccinated students who are not high-risk contacts. Sudbury Local Health Unit is doing this, saying that the rise in rapid tests makes it easier to track and prevent the spread of COVID.
Toronto mother Bronwen Alsop says she is frustrated that her son’s entire school closed last week due to a six-case COVID outbreak and wonders why Toronto Public Health has yet to implement the stay test.
“Closing an entire school with just six cases is unacceptable,” said Alsop, whose son Liam is in kindergarten at McMurrich Public High School, adding that he and his peers tested negative.
Liam is in a class for deaf and hard of hearing students at the school, located in the Wychwood neighborhood. And the shift to remote learning was a challenge for him, said Bronwen, founder of the Ontario Families Coalition, which advocates for in-person learning.
“Virtual learning is terrible for children with hearing loss and this is really robbing them of valuable time when they could be learning in person.”
The province’s test-stay strategy aims to keep children in schools with multiple COVID cases, by ensuring that unvaccinated asymptomatic students undergo rapid and regular antigen screenings while attending school. Confirmed cases or high-risk contacts should self-isolate and undergo a PCR test.
But TPH and other public health units have yet to implement test-to-stay, which has been used in Europe and the United States.
Instead, TPH uses PCR testing as part of its investigation into school outbreaks, which has helped prevent dozens of schools from closing. This academic year, TPH has made school-wide PCR testing recommendations at 58 schools. Ten schools have been laid off.
TPH says that if the school-wide PCR test identifies multiple new cases of COVID, it can lead to the dismissal of an entire school. But if no new cases are identified, the laid-off cohorts continue to isolate themselves, while those that remain in school would monitor for any new symptoms of COVID.
When the school-wide PCR testing is done after a closure, it may result in cohorts returning to class before the usual 10-day dismissal period.
“Using the PCR test enables more accurate detection of COVID-19,” says TPH spokesperson Dr. Vinita Dubey, Associate Medical Health Officer, adding that the goal is “to sustain in-person learning for so many. children as possible. “
TPH investigations, which may lead to a partial or total school closure, are conducted on a case-by-case basis, with the goal of stopping transmission in schools. Several factors are considered, but there is no fixed number of cases that determines the closure of a school. That is why, for example, McMurrich was closed with six cases, while, at the same time, Swansea Junior and Senior Public School remained open with 15 cases.
The ripple effect of a few COVID cases in a school can be immense. For example, at McMurrich, five classes isolated themselves as a result of six cases among students. However, the entire school of 550 students was fired by TPH on November 28. On Monday, the school reopened.
Toronto schools currently closed include Catholic School of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Y Wilkinson Junior Public School. In the whole province, eight schools were closed Tuesday and 836 had a reported case.
In Toronto, TPH recommends rapid antigen testing for students and staff after returning from a school-wide layoff. They are given five kits to test twice a week for two weeks.
Dr. Alanna Golden, a former child mental health social worker and practicing primary care physician in Toronto, says that “at this point in the pandemic, it seems somewhat surprising that we are still resorting to full school closings when there are a handful of associated cases. “
She says the data suggest children can stay safely in the classroom even after close contact exposure using the test strategy to stay.
“The bottom line is that if there is a better way to keep children in class that is as safe as quarantining them, why wouldn’t we do that when we fully understand what the academic and non-academic risks are associated with having children? out of school.
“Also, the impact on families is huge. How are people supposed to work? … The ripple effect of an entire school having to stay at home, plus the parents of that entire school, is insane. “
In Guelph, Greer understands the impacts on families: She is currently at home with her two young daughters who are self-isolating after one of them was exposed to COVID in her classroom.
Given current case counts, he said that the dismissal of class groups will likely continue for some time because, absent the implementation of rapid tests, that is the only way to break the chains of transmission.
She notes that while one group of scientists sees the permanence test as an “added layer of protection,” another is concerned that rapid tests are not good enough and that if a case is missed, it could result in a secondary transmission.
“I think there is room for rapid tests in this situation,” he said. “We are not going to be doing this forever. We have a small window in which we are trying to bring the vaccine to these groups, at the same time that we are seeing a rapid increase in the number of cases of unvaccinated children. For me, if there was ever a time to do it, this should have been the time. “
Reference-www.thestar.com