Public health officials in Hastings Prince Edward made it clear on Wednesday they do not support Premier Doug Ford’s decision to keep schools shut down.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Peter Oglaza told a virtual meeting of the Board of Health on Wednesday he is in “full support of reopening the schools in this area.”
Oglaza said the schools had not presented any issues during the pandemic.
“Even throughout the height of the pandemic, with the second and third wave, we have not seen additional transmission in the classroom and we have not seen schools being contributing or driving transmission in the communities.”
Board Chair Jo-Anne Albert said, “I wonder what group he’s listening to. I have a feeling I know what group he’s listening to,” but she did not comment further.
Following the meeting, Oglaza also commented that medical officers of health have expressed their concern to the provincial government about the cumulative impact on children of remote learning and not being in a school environment in person.
“It’s a cumulative impact of what already has been a very different year for everyone in the school system. Yes the additional weeks remaining in June would have been excellent to have that time as return for in-person learning.”
He added, ” I’m hopeful, I’m trusting that youth, hopefully, will be very resilient.
” … and that the negative impact school closure will be able to catch up in the future. but again this will take a lot of work and efforts to go back to a regular routine and perhaps repair some of the cumulative impact of being away from school in person.”
Oglaza continued, “There’s already systems and processes in place that we work with the school system with school partners in September prior to opening last year. All of these systems, processes were in place. They were working well. They resulted in schools being a low risk environment for children. Our role continues to be follow-up on any of the cases identified among the school cohorts and following up on their contacts. And given our current activity I anticipate that will be the very minimal amount of work with the zero cases (of COVID-19).
The Ontario Association of Medical Officers of Health has promoted the opening of schools.
