B.C. struggling, Ontario succeeding: Are schools the key to lower COVID rates?
British Columbia continues to see daily cases and hospitalizations climb through the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in stark contrast to Ontario, and while experts don’t have all the answers, containment measures in schools may be the biggest factor.
While Alberta and Saskatchewan are much worse by every metric, British Columbia is seeing far more infections and deaths per capita than Canada’s most populous province. With 127 cases per 100,000 residents compared to Ontario’s 34, B.C. has nearly quadruple the proportion of sick people.
"I don't know why Ontario hasn't taken off like a rocket and some provinces have, but I think it's plausible that is due to what we're doing in schools," said Dr. David Fisman, a physician and epidemiology professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
He pointed out that unlike in British Columbia, Ontario policymakers have recognized that transmission of COVID-19 happens primarily through the air and have responded on several fronts. HEPA air filtration is commonplace, with all Toronto classrooms running a standalone machine. Teachers are intentionally keeping windows open for ventilation and airflow, and children in all grades have been required to wear masks since the previous school year.
"All of the stuff works better if you do it proactively rather than reactively and that seems to be a big problem for B.C., attitudinally,” Fisman explained. “The idea is you do this when it's quiet, proactively, because it's light-touch stuff. This is all about tipping points, so if you have reproduction number great than 1 you get exponential growth in cases and each case makes more than one new case, but if you get it down below 1, nothing happens."
While confirmed COVID-19 cases began skyrocketing in August, once the school year started, the dominant age group becoming infected with COVID-19 was children under the age of 10, who aren’t eligible for vaccination.
PROVINCIAL HEALTH OFFICER REACTING SLOWLY
B.C.’s provincial health officer acknowledged the Delta variant has had an impact on pediatric infections, but insisted that schools are still the safest place for children to be, and focussed on vaccinations as the best way to curb the spread of the virus.
Dr. Bonnie Henry also defended moving slowly in response to infections, becoming defensive when asked if the K-12 mask mandate – which she imposed Friday after school districts started doing so independently – indicated the public had lost confidence in her back-to-school plan.
“No, I don’t believe that’s it at all,” she said. “We’ve been monitoring the data and I’m not the only person who makes these decisions. It’s something that we have a large group of people who are working on – it’s public health, it’s in partnership with the school districts, parent advisory committees and others.”
Earlier this week, public health officials once again came under fire for a weak testing regime that’s seen long lineups for PCR tests and calls for more rapid tests to detect possible infections. According the Public Health Agency of Canada, there are more than 2 million rapid tests provided by the federal government still unused in provincial warehouses.
CHILDREN’S RISK OF SERIOUS ILLNESS
The health minister shocked the province when he tweeted about a newborn in an intensive care unit with COVID-19 two weeks ago, but the following morning he insisted the child was home and doing well. At the time, one of Canada’s top doctors warned the risks of the virus are complex for children.
"The impact of COVID on children goes beyond just the hospitalization – of course, severe illness and death is the worst case scenario – but long COVID is one of them and we're just starting to understand what that looks like on children," said Dr. Katharine Smart, president of the Canadian Medical Association, on Sept. 14.
Fisman echoed those concerns and pointed out that although Henry is correct in saying that children are less likely than adults to develop serious illness from the virus, they can still spread the virus to older families members who are at greater risk. He also warned that while one or two per cent of cases in hospital doesn’t sound like much, the more kids that contract the virus, the more seriously sick kids we’ll start to see.
"The bigger the iceberg, the bigger the tip of the iceberg, so as you allow the epidemic to grow and grow and grow, what happens is rare bad outcomes start to be seen just because the denominator is so big,” explained Fisman. “A small percentage of a big number can be an unacceptably big number."
Two children under the age of 10 have died due to COVID-19 in British Columbia, while 208 under the age of 19 have been hospitalized. There are only 28 pediatric intensive care beds at BC Children’s Hospital.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
Police handcuff man trying to enter Drake's Toronto mansion
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
Biden says he will stop sending bombs and artillery shells to Israel if they launch major invasion of Rafah
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
U.S. presidential candidate RFK Jr. had a brain worm, has recovered, campaign says
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
Ontario Provincial Police arrest 64 suspects in child sexual exploitation investigation
Ontario Provincial Police say 64 suspects are facing a combined 348 charges in connection with a series of child sexual exploitation investigations that spanned the province.
Pfizer agrees to settle more than 10K lawsuits over Zantac cancer risk: Bloomberg News
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec premier defends new museum on Quebecois nation after Indigenous criticism
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Blind Sask. boy heading to international braille competition hopes to increase accessibility for visually impaired
A Saskatchewan boy who qualified for an international braille competition in Los Angeles next month hopes he can inspire change in his home province.
'A step forward': New screening criteria for sperm donors takes effect
Canadians looking to grow their families with the assistance of sperm or egg donations should soon have more options for donors as the federal health agency does away with longstanding restrictions criticized as discriminatory.