Local public heath officials are concerned about the increase in COVID-19 cases among school age children.
Following a meeting of the Hastings Prince Edward Board of Health on Wednesday, Acting Medical Officer of Health Ethan Toumishey indicated he has a concern over the increase in cases in school age children.
Toumishay said, “It really stands out this is a population that hasn’t benefited themselves from access to the vaccine yet. It’s needed now. I’m very optimistic and excited that we have access to the vaccine and we have an entire month (before Christmas) to get vaccinated, get first doses in, especially as we’re looking ahead to the winter break. Just from my power presentation, we can see we’re looking at population scales. The effect of implementing these vaccines on transmission. It really stands out this is a population that hasn’t benefited themselves from access to the vaccine yet. It’s needed now.”
He added, “I have concern over the increase in cases absolutely and we’re working closely with partners in school boards.”
“Seeing examples of what measures to increase safety and reduce transmissions that we are seeing. But the vaccine itself, I’m optimistic that this will have a significant impact for protecting our children, our youth.”
He added that he has a concern over the increase in cases “absolutely” and is working closely with partners in school boards,
He noted there are high rates of vaccination in high school age youths but this is snot so in the younger classes. When we look for a recent trends that we are…we can estimate that within a school year a third of cases are occurring in school age children. It’s a significant proportion of our cases are in this age group. We see a difference in the number cases between elementary school and secondary schools.”
“In secondary schools we have the high rates of the vaccine coverage, proportionally far fewer cases that we’re seeing there. We can contrast and see the benefit we expect this rollout of vaccine is going to have.”
“Closed indoor environments for prolonged periods of time. It’s going to be where transmissions most readily occur. Where we’re seeing current cases particularly with school age kids, is that we see cases that affect school cohorts. We have had some instances of likely transmissions in these environments. but still most likely for school age kids most transmission occurs in high risk environments and households and social settings outside.”
Toumishay added, “School environment throughout the pandemic worked very closely with our school board environments to promote safety as much as possible and these are remarkably safe environments. Really what this is a testament to is how transmissable the Delta variant is. We have had a regression of re-opening in our overall environments and school environments increased activities, While we see some cases with likely transmission within the school environment again, more significant risk is going to be outside of the school environment.”
“Looking at ways of enforcing the measures that have remained tried and true, and screening, isolating, encouraging testing. Moving towards encouraging with the vaccine rollout and then masking and distancing cohorts to increase safety. By and large, our schools are safe environment for kids. The measures that out school partners have taken to deliver education but also incorporate public health measures to reduce the likelihood of transmission has really worked to protect the population.”
“So really the common thread that we have is for closed indoor spaces for prolonged periods if there’s poor ventilation it’s going to affect risk.,” said Toumishay.
He added, “While we see some cases with likely transmission within the school environment again, more significant risk is going to be outside of the school environment.”
