Every morning when my daughter and son, who is in seventh grade, physically go to school, they do an online Covid-19 screening to make sure they don’t have any coronavirus symptoms before they arrive. If they have symptoms they are expected to stay home and, in most cases, be tested. Whenever a student tests positive, the public health unit rushes into the school to contain the virus and study its spread through testing and contact tracing, according to Dr. Dubey.
So far, she said, data from her office shows that most children are infected at home rather than at school.
“Schools are actually still a safe place for children,” said Dr. Dubey, finding that the positivity rate among Toronto’s teenagers is 7.5 percent – higher than in schools.
She added: “When children are out of school, they will be more in the community – at game dates or something like that where Covid is spreading. That’s part of the balance. At least in one school they make contacts and receive training that is “controlled”. “
Many parents are not convinced. In Toronto, the proportion of children choosing to learn online rose from 26 percent at the start of the school year to 33 percent in late October, according to the Toronto District School Board. The shift was even more pronounced in the suburbs of Mississauga and Brampton: Almost half of public elementary school students now attend classes virtually, according to the Canadian Press Wire Service.
“Many, many, many families have no faith in this government’s plan,” said Kelly Iggers, a mother and teacher at a Toronto elementary school who garnered more than 270,000 signatures on a petition calling on the government to reduce class sizes, what didn’t happen. “Only a very small proportion of the children are currently being tested. We just don’t know how many cases there are. “
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