Uncertainty remains for students, parents and staff when it comes to back to school after the holiday break.
Our region’s top doctor wants to see schools stay open to in-person learning.
“Keeping schools open is best overall for the child,” explains Medical Officer of Health for the Northwestern Health Unit, Dr. Kit Young Hoon. “There continues to be public health measures in place at schools and we continue to work with schools to ensure that they’re able to follow those measures outlined by the province. We are looking to the province for more guidance on this and expect they will be providing more information this week. So, our assessment locally is that schools should continue to remain open.”
While it’s a balancing act of weighing the pros and cons and risk of the virus, Dr. Young Hoon says closing schools and shifting to virtual learning has shown to negatively impact students.
“At this point it’s better to have public health measures in place to reduce spread as much as we can in the school setting. I also think this (schools) is only a piece of the approach though to the pandemic response, there’s a need to think about it from a bigger picture perspective, what we’re trying to achieve in trying to control COVID-19 and that comes from the province.”
Dr. Young Hoon also notes any wide spread school closures would affect the available workforce, especially in the already stretched thin health care sector.
The province has the ultimate say and an official announcement from the Ford Government on schools is still to come.
