A spring break to forget COVID spread changes holiday plans for many Manitoba families; classes resume Monday with lots of staff, student absences By: Maggie Macintosh Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Apr. 4, 2022

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/04/2022 (1306 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Recovery — rather than relaxation — took over many Manitoba vacationers’ itineraries during spring break 2022, with COVID-19 seemingly everywhere only a couple of weeks after restrictions were lifted.

As classes resumed Monday, an unknown number of students and education workers were isolating. At one metro division, nearly four per cent of employees — a record number — including teachers, custodians and other support staff, called in sick after the last week’s holiday.

Grade 8 student Natalie Thiessen is among the unlucky learners recovering from a bout with the virus.

The 13 year old said she had been looking forward to a week of sleep-ins, but instead found herself sleeping away a significant part of her vacation days.

“At first, it was just a bit of a headache, which was normal for me, but then the headache got worse and wouldn’t go away…. (it) got so bad to the point I couldn’t do anything except sit in the dark,” she said.

“At first, it was just a bit of a headache, which was normal for me, but then the headache got worse and wouldn’t go away…. (it) got so bad to the point I couldn’t do anything except sit in the dark.” – Natalie Thiessen, student

One week after testing positive on a rapid antigen test, the middle-schooler said she still feels only about 65 per cent. The double-vaccinated teen noted one of her classmates had fallen ill with the virus during the week before spring break.

“I don’t think it’s any surprise that since mask requirements have been dropped and people no longer have to isolate, COVID has exploded,” said Karyn Balser, Natalie’s mother. “I know so many more people who have or had COVID in the last two weeks than the entire last two years.”

Before last week, the Winnipeg family had — to their knowledge — avoided the virus.

Balser remains in good health despite caring for her sick daughter, but said it’s “incredibly frustrating” that Manitobans are being told to make individual health decisions for themselves when the province has stopped the flow of data required to make informed choices.

Last week, government officials stopped updating the COVID-19 school dashboard, which once included a map of active cases and outbreaks connected to K-12 buildings. The information was pared down earlier in the academic year when the pandemic response across schools began to pivot to a community-management model (instead of a case-by-case basis) and PCR testing eligibility shrunk.

The remaining limited data has now been scrubbed from the provincial website, along with other virus tables.

The Louis Riel School Division is the sole metro Winnipeg education authority that is publicly releasing information about COVID-related absences; 73 staff members were away from schools across southeast Winnipeg Monday. A total of 247 K-12 students were reportedly absent, either because they were showing symptoms, had received a positive test or were directed by public health to isolate after an exposure.

Those figures translate into 3.8 per cent and 1.89 per cent of their respective populations — increases of one per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively, in comparison to pre-spring break figures.

The previous daily record for staff absences in 2022 was 64, or 3.3 per cent of LRSD employees, on Jan. 21. On that same day, almost five per cent of the student population — a staggering 883 pupils — was away for similar reasons.

Jennifer Oldfield suspects her youngest daughter brought COVID-19 home from preschool right before the high school teacher left for spring vacation. Oldfield, a mother of two, considers her family lucky, as they’ve all experienced mild symptoms.

“My spring break was spent living vicariously through others’ vacation posts,” Oldfield said, adding she is grateful to have the ability to use her teacher sick days as her family recovers.

Federal protocols require that any fully vaccinated traveller who is re-entering Canada must wear “a well-constructed and well-fitting mask” in both indoor and outdoor public spaces for 14 days after an international trip. Unvaccinated and partially immunized individuals who left the country over spring break are still required to quarantine for two weeks.

“My spring break was spent living vicariously through others’ vacation posts.” – Jennifer Oldfield

Meantime, Manitoba’s provincial public-health rules are virtually non-existent.

In every public school district except for Frontier School Division in northern Manitoba, face-coverings are not required among students or staff members. The executive director of the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools could not say Monday how many, if any, private schools continue to mandate masks.

“As all public-health orders and mask requirements have ended, school divisions and independent schools can make their own decisions about mask use based on local needs,” Education Minister Wayne Ewasko said in a email statement.

Citing the fact parents and students are entitled to safe schools, one teacher who specializes in science education criticized governments, boards and administrators for “an abdication of (professional) responsibility.”

Both the Winnipeg-based educator, who is in his 30s, and his partner contracted COVID-19 late last month and spent the better part of their break in self-imposed quarantine together. His symptoms ranged from nasal congestion to fatigue.

“There is an inherent baseline sense of anxiety (when you work at a school during a pandemic), but the helplessness and anxiety has gone up since… masks have gone away,” he said, noting educators can no longer enforce proper masking etiquette among students.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie

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Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.