Schools to shutter as cases soar

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This article was published 09/05/2021 (1588 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After months of educators sounding the alarm over COVID-19 safety within schools, the Manitoba government admitted at long last Sunday that a growing number of coronavirus cases are coming from school-aged children.

However, while the province is moving all kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms in the cities of Winnipeg and Brandon to remote learning as of Wednesday, neither government nor public-health officials have provided emergency support to the staff who work at those sites.

On top of that, child-care workers — who will bear the brunt of still keeping their doors open to children — will not receive any additional help or rapid testing protocols, nor will they be prioritized to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Still, they will be given additional personal protective equipment, officials said.

“We’re in a different world over the last week from where we were prior to that, and obviously these are very tough decisions,” said Education Minister Cliff Cullen, joining Manitoba’s chief provincial public-health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, at a rare news conference on Mother’s Day. “These decisions are not made lightly.”

Around 20 per cent of overall COVID-19 cases are now coming from school-aged children, Dr. Roussin said. While some of these individuals may not have caught the virus in school or spread it to others because they were self-isolating at home, as of May 6, there have been 574 cases linked to schools within last couple weeks alone.

“We’ve always said we’d monitor the situation and may have to impose restrictions,” said Roussin, noting “there can always be questions about why (announce on) this day and why not another day” but that “things have changed because we’ve seen increasing cases in these childhood cohorts.”

Dr. Jazz Atwal, deputy chief provincial public health officer, when asked why parents can send children to school today and Tuesday but not Wednesday, told reporters late Sunday that “the act of going to school is still safe.”

“Public health isn’t worried about the idea of going to school, it’s worried about everything around that,” said Atwal.

However, Atwal refused repeatedly to provide the modelling data that led to the government’s conclusions about such relative safety of schools.

Remote learning in both Winnipeg and Brandon will continue until May 30. This also includes cancelled indoor singing, banned wind instruments and nixed extracurricular activities — such as organized sports and activities out of school — except for physically-distanced walks or runs.

At the same time, schools in full remote learning will still accommodate kindergarten to Grade 6 children of critical services workers who cannot make alternative care arrangements. Kids with special needs will also be accommodated at schools.

Schools in other parts of Manitoba will stay open for now but will make the shift to remote learning if they have more than one COVID-19 case, Cullen said. “We’ll be looking at (closing) schools in other regions, but right now, we’re focusing on where the cases are most coming out of,” said Roussin.

Child-care facilities will continue to be open, save for some students who are on remote learning. Yet, on Sunday, neither Roussin nor Cullen would answer directly when asked about plans to prioritize teachers and early childhood educators for vaccinations — despite the fact that centres in Winnipeg and Brandon are asked to remain open.

“We’re certainly doing everything we can to make sure that we have safe schools, safe workplaces… We have a lot of front-line workers across our province that are also looking for vaccination, and we’ve highlighted these areas,” said Cullen, without providing any concrete details about future provincial plans but calling Sunday’s decision “proactive.”

Sunday’s announcement came amidst calls from parents and teachers’ unions to move public schools to remote learning. The Manitoba Teachers’ Society urged the province last week to make such changes during the third wave so as to allow staff to get vaccinated and pandemic restrictions to have an effect.

“It’s embarrassing that this had to happen on Mother’s Day when the premier could’ve done this on Friday before he shuttered businesses without even giving them any monetary support.”
– NDP Leader Wab Kinew

Reaction from political opposition leaders was swift. Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew did not mince words, calling the Tories’ decision Sunday “last-minute and completely chaotic.”

“It’s embarrassing that this had to happen on Mother’s Day when the premier could’ve done this on Friday before he shuttered businesses without even giving them any monetary support,” Kinew told reporters at the Manitoba Legislative Building. “But this is what it is living in the Progressive Conservatives’ Manitoba.”

Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont said people in the province have been “kept under a veil” with all decisions from the Tories until “they feel like going ahead with them.”

“Ask yourself, why did it take this long?” he said. “And knowing the Pallister government, you’ll know exactly why this disruption occurred.”

 

temur.durrani@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @temurdur