Children walk with their parents at Sherwood Park Elementary in North Vancouver for their first day back to school on September 10, 2020. Masks remain optional under British Columbia’s newly released guidelines for schools, but some teacher and parent groups are pushing for more strict COVID-19 protocol. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward British Columbia’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry is defending the province’s pandemic back-to-school guidelines against calls from some parent and teacher groups for stricter COVID-19 protocols. The guidelines released Thursday encourage students and others to get vaccinated and stay home when sick, while the mask remains optional and described as a “personal or family choice.” Henry, who called mandatory coverage a “blunt tool,” said the province will monitor the spread of COVID-19 and other viruses and be ready to implement temporary measures when and if they are needed. “We have to adjust the measures we have for what we’re dealing with now, and I think these are the appropriate measures as we head into the fall,” she said in an interview Friday. “We’re in a very different place than we were a year ago with the high level of immunity and exposure to the virus that we had, and the virus itself has changed to the point where it’s much more contagious but doesn’t cause serious illness.” Clint Johnston, president of the BC Teachers Federation, said the union believes schools require stronger measures than businesses or public spaces and is calling for better ventilation in classrooms and masking requirements. “There’s excitement coming into the school year that’s always there, which is nice, but hopefully people are watching and the Department of Health stays really nimble,” he said in an interview. “We hope they are prepared and ready with contingencies and plans to deal with whatever comes up.” In a joint statement on Thursday, the Department of Health and the Department of Education encouraged parents to vaccinate their children against COVID-19 and other diseases and to keep them at home if they get sick, saying this is “especially important before the respiratory season diseases”. “Wearing a mask will continue to be a personal choice and that choice will be supported and respected. Schools will continue to have masks available for those who wish to wear one,” the statement said. Jennifer Heighton, co-founder of the Safe Schools Coalition BC, said the organization was “extremely disappointed” to hear the year would begin “without better protections in the classroom, such as universal masking with better masks and HEPA filtration.” He said school is a basic service that should be accessible to all children in Canada, but some parents are forced to “choose between school and health.” “It’s an impossible choice to make,” he said. “It’s a justice issue. It’s a human rights issue.” Henry, who was part of the task force that created the guidelines, said she doesn’t see broad mask mandates coming back. “It’s a very blunt tool and it’s kind of a last resort,” Henry said. “It has to be in the context of what’s going on in the community and what’s going on across the province, and whether there’s a real need for these kinds of restrictions, especially a legal mandate like this.” Henry said the province is now focused on encouraging parents to get their youngsters vaccinated against COVID-19 and the flu. “What’s really important is staying up to date on vaccinations for all the vaccine-preventable diseases we give kids,” she said. “As we go into October, November, December, I expect we’ll also see a wave of COVID this year, and I’m concerned that we’ll see other respiratory illnesses that we haven’t seen in a while, particularly the flu.” About half of children between the ages of five and 11 in B.C. they’ve done two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine so far, Henry said. “It’s not as high as we’d like,” he said. However, he said about 90 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 17 have had two shots. Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, announced that Health Canada approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as a booster for five- to 11-year-olds last Friday. The dose for children aged five to 11 is lower at 10 micrograms, compared to 30 micrograms for children aged 12 and over. The National Immunization Advisory Committee said children with underlying medical conditions or who are immunocompromised, putting them at greater risk of severe infection from COVID-19, should receive a booster at least six months after their second vaccination. It said that as of July 17, 42 per cent of five- to 11-year-olds across Canada have received their first dose. Johnston said the union supports the province’s efforts to vaccinate children, but worries it won’t be enough on its own. “We fully support vaccination and we hope that everyone who can will get vaccinated, (but) to prevent actual transmission, whether vaccinated or not, we’re still looking at masks and ventilation as two of the really key pieces of that. ” he said. The province said it has invested more than $166.5 million to upgrade and improve classroom ventilation since the start of the pandemic. “This amount is expected to increase as school districts finalize costs for ventilation improvements funded by annual facility grants, with actual amounts to be known at the end of the 22/23 school year,” the health department said in a statement. emailed on Friday. . The federal government also announced in March that it would provide an additional $11.9 million to BC for ventilation-related improvements, but the Ministry of Education has yet to reveal how it will be used. Kyenta Martins, vice-president of the Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council, said the group expects a spike in COVID-19 as schools open and cooler weather approaches. “We know it’s coming,” he said. “Good air means everything. Parents want personal training where the air is safe.” He said the group is also calling for more HEPA filtration and CO2 monitors in classrooms “so teachers get real-time air quality data.”
