Education is an important pillar of any society. Not only is it fundamental for the development of children, but it is also an important determinant of the health of the population. Going to school allows our children to develop, while acquiring knowledge and skills; the school meets their socialization needs, contributes to their cognitive and psychological development, and teaches them the basics of life in society.
Posted yesterday at 10:00 a.m.
Education and schooling must therefore remain a priority in Quebec. Children must go to school for their own well-being, but also for the well-being of their parents and of society as a whole, which struggles to do without workers who have to keep their children at home.
Far from being over, the fifth wave hits Quebec very hard, to the point that screening capacities are exceeded. Only priority clienteles and essential workers are admitted to screening centers. We no longer have a clear picture of the prevalence of cases and places of outbreaks. In the context, the only indicators that can guide us are the rate of positivity on tests and hospitalizations.
The National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services (INESSS) admitted on January 6 that it was no longer able to provide robust projections on hospitalizations. However, the number of people hospitalized is growing steadily every day.
The Deputy Minister of Health, the DD Lucie Opatrny, also indicated during the press briefing on January 6 that “the level of load shedding 4 will not be sufficient to obtain the hospital capacity that we will need to treat all the patients that we will have in the coming weeks” .
An environment conducive to outbreaks
The return to school is scheduled for January 17th. Schools, in December, represented 50% of the outbreaks with around 1,500 new cases per day, while the much more transmissible Omicron variant was not yet installed everywhere in Quebec. Children very rarely develop severe symptoms, but they do contribute to the transmission of COVID-19 in their families. As with adults, unvaccinated children are most at risk of developing severe symptoms. However, vaccination coverage has peaked among 5 to 11 year olds for a few weeks. In Quebec, only 1% of children had received two doses of the vaccine on January 9 and the endorsement for the third dose of high school students had not yet been given.
Currently, a large number of workplaces, in Quebec and in countries around the world affected by Omicron, are experiencing a high rate of absenteeism due to contamination and COVID-19 isolation, leading to a disruption of essential services.
In the countries which have reopened schools, we note a strong absenteeism on the side of the pupils as well as of the school personnel.
It will certainly be necessary to prepare to face it. In several of these countries, health protocols in schools have been strengthened, in particular by the establishment of compulsory screening by rapid antigenic test for children before returning to class.
We want our children to return to school safely and quickly for their mental, physical and emotional health (and that of their parents as well), but it is essential to do so in conditions that are safe for all. This can only be done with the establishment of a rigorous and strict health protocol to ensure that children do not contribute to the spread of the virus in their families and in Quebec, which would contribute to the saturation of the hospital capacity anticipated by DD Opatrny. Knowing the negative consequences of distance schooling on children’s development, we owe it to ourselves to quickly put in place a risk management plan, before returning to class.
This health protocol should be based on systematic screening of children by rapid antigenic tests, authorization for school personnel who so wish to wear an N95 mask and improved air filtration.
These conditions for creating a safe learning environment are currently not there. We are not ready!
Especially since Quebec still does not recognize aerosol contamination, now recognized by the World Health Organization, Canada and many countries around the world.
Quebec must equip itself with indicators based on recent evidence to inform the evolution of the health crisis, as well as targets through which it will be possible to take the risk of sending our children to school without having to implement the protocol for prioritizing surgical interventions or care.
Europe, which precedes us by a few weeks in the waves, has not yet reached its contamination plateau. But Europe has a greater hospital capacity than Quebec. We probably still have several weeks of growth in cases to go through and, consequently, hospitalizations which will continue to rise. Let us provide a safe educational environment for our children and prevent them from contributing disproportionately to contamination and therefore to saturation of the health care system as soon as they enter class.
* Co-signers: David Juncker, Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at McGill University; Benoit Barbeau, professor in the department of biological sciences at UQAM; Simon Bacon, Professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology at Concordia University; Amélie Boisclair, intensivist doctor; Maximilien Debia, professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal; Kim Lavoie, Canada Research Chair in Behavioral Medicine and Professor in the Department of Psychology at UQAM; Francois Audet, professor at UQAM and director of the Canadian Observatory on Crises and Humanitarian Action; Joanne Liu, professor in the School of Population and Global Health at McGill University; Anne Bhéreur, family doctor and assistant clinical professor at the University of Montreal; Josiane Cossette, president of the Saint-Pierre-Claver school governing board; André Veillette, immunologist at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute; Nimâ Machouf, consultant in epidemiology of infectious diseases, lecturer at the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal; Catherine Haeck, professor in the economics department of UQAM; Olivier Drouin, pediatrician and clinician researcher at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal