Children and teenagers have accounted for about one in five COVID-19 cases across Canada since the start of the pandemic.
That figure could rise during a feared fourth wave as unvaccinated children return to school. In the U.S., COVID-19 cases among children have climbed steadily since July.
In Ontario, students are heading back to in-person learning in less than three weeks. Most parents are planning to send their children into classrooms. Students will be required to wear masks and maintain physical distance indoors wherever possible. Will they be safe? Will they be taking the virus home to their families?
Among students aged 12 to 17, only 53 per cent are fully vaccinated. Twenty-nine per cent of Canadians remain unvaccinated. This number includes all the children for whom there is no vaccine as yet.
That is a lot of people who might get infected; have the potential to pass on the illness to the vaccinated and act as the source for even more deadly new variants.
No wonder Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s new Medical Office of Health, is worried about the Delta Variant getting out of control. Infection numbers are slowly rising in Ontario.
He is pausing Ontario’s re-opening plans. He has passed new directives for all publicly funded school board employees, as well as staff in licensed child care settings.
If such individuals choose to remain unvaccinated without a medical or religious reason, he or she must submit to regular rapid antigen testing.
This is a half-measure: good as far as it goes, but incomplete. I searched for a directive covering the vaccination status of students who will be attending in-class education in September. There is no such directive. They are free to attend indoor classes without vaccination.
Ontario students are required to show proof of vaccination for measles, mumps, diphtheria and other contagious diseases to be permitted to attend school. COVID is the big exception. What a glaring omission.
The third COVID wave led to the closure of all in-person education in Ontario earlier this year. Students were felt to be a significant source of viral transmission.
Our provincial and federal governments have consistently underestimated the coronavirus and acted in slow motion. Lockdown followed lockdown.
To avoid an out-of-control fourth wave, followed by yet another lockdown of the economy and the school system, Premier Ford and Dr Moore, please take comprehensive action now, meaning immediately.
Make it mandatory that students must be fully vaccinated to attend in-person education. If they refuse, they will be offered online learning from home. For the children under 12, for whom there is no vaccine, provide rapid antigen testing on a regular basis.
As a province, we must do all we can to avoid another lockdown. We all want life to return to normal.
Dr. Peter Zalan is the former president of the medical staff at Health Sciences North, and a retired intensive care physician.
