Pediatric association pushes for return to school

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This article was published 02/06/2021 (1807 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE Manitoba Pediatric Society wants the province to reopen schools before the school year is over — unless officials can provide evidence children are contributing to community spread in order to justify continued closures.

“June shouldn’t be a write-off,” said Dr. Marni Hanna, president of the provincial society.

“It is still worthwhile to get kids back to school, even if it’s only for a couple of weeks in June.”

Ideally, all K-12 students should be invited back into their classrooms, said Hanna, but at the very least, she wants elementary schoolers to get the opportunity to see their classmates and teachers before summer.

Hanna told the Free Press pediatricians across the province have been seeing depression, anxiety and eating disorders in youth spike throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly when schools are closed and students are isolated from their social networks.

Students with developmental disabilities have regressed without in-person support, she said.

In a letter penned to cabinet ministers, public health officials and senior doctors in mid-May, Hanna wrote that pediatricians are “extremely concerned” about classroom learning being paused amid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We cannot allow our fears and anxiety to dictate policy that ultimately harms (children) more than COVID ever could,” she wrote in the letter, which is dated May 14, but was released to the public late last week.

Hanna noted while school is a place of learning, for some students it is also a sanctuary from family strife, emotional or physical abuse, or a place to get a healthy meal to start the school day.

Citing the “unintentional fallout” of the pandemic, and research showing children are less susceptible to spread the novel coronavirus and become severely ill from it, and the effectiveness of mitigation measures in schools, the society has called on the province to lift the suspension.

At present, 393 schools are fully in remote learning mode.

Provincial officials originally shuttered in-class learning in Winnipeg and Brandon on May 10 until this week. Closures have been extended until the week of June 7 and expanded, to include schools in Dauphin and both Red River Valley and Garden Valley school divisions.

The pediatric society wants the province to provide and promote vaccination for all educators, promote immunization to families, and consider reinstituting outdoor extracurricular activities immediately.

“There needs to be more transparency about what degree of spread is coming from schools to justify this, because at least in the past school transmission was not a major source of spread and it was also part of the reason why teachers were not considered a high priority group to get their vaccines,” Hanna added during a phone interview Monday.

In a prepared statement, Education Minister Cliff Cullen said he agrees students learn best in the classroom.

“The more we follow public health measures and get vaccine into the arms of Manitobans, the sooner we can get kids back into school.”

Last week, the minister indicated he was hopeful, at the very least, the youngest students in Manitoba will be able to end the school year in class.

In the two weeks leading up to May 25, there were 482 COVID-19 cases connected to schools.

Exposures in classrooms have skyrocketed during the latest wave; in recent weeks, the number of cases recorded over a two-week period peaked at more than 700.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie