Vaccine-hesitant parents urged to ask questions, get school-aged kids COVID shots

It won’t be long before classrooms are packed once again and there are some concerns being raised about the number of B.C. kids who are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

One prominent specialist is urging hesitant parents to start asking questions.

“I’m very disappointed. I think we’ve barely hit 50 per cent in school-aged children, much less than that in those aged six months to five years for whom the vaccine has been available for several weeks,” said Dr. Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre.

“I think we really need to make sure that people can ask their questions, have their questions answered, and proceed to have their children vaccinated as soon as possible, as long as they comfortable doing so.”

Conway calls the COVID vaccine the “first line of defense” against the virus.

“We’d like everyone to be more vaccinated to be protected against getting infected and transmitting it to others,” he told OMNI News. “That being said, at no time have schools been an amplifying factor in transmission of COVID.”

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He says the virus has spread in schools throughout each wave of the pandemic, but it has mirrored the transmission that occurred in the community.

“So I’m not that concerned, but I really would like to see more people get vaccinated.”

Conway asserts schools are safer than the general community when it comes to COVID-19.

“We know who’s coming in, we know who’s coming out, it’s generally the same people. If anyone is sick, they get sent home. Once again, we have improved the environment, we know how to space people, ventilation has improved, and children are actually safer at school than in the community.”

That being said, Conway feels vaccination is still critical in the fight against the virus.

“We won’t force anyone, we never have, but we would love for people who are hesitant to ask their questions, and we will answer them,” he assured. 

When it comes to masks in the classroom, Conway points to the shift away from mandates.

“We’ve moved from a societal imperative to do things to individual responsibility. The individual responsibility is to get your shots, stay home if you’re sick, wear a mask if you think the environment demands it — so, lots of new people together, indoors, for an extended period of time. And we’ve learned to wash our hands really well over the past couple of years.”

He calls masks one layer among many in protecting against COVID-19.

“We just need to tell ourselves that’s how it’s going to work in schools, same as it does everywhere else.”

With contract talks for teachers ongoing, the BC Teachers’ Federation and the province have also been discussing the COVID plan for the upcoming school year.

New BCTF President Clint Johnston expects an announcement by the end of this week.

“Broadly, we expect to be similar to the end of the last school year. Masks were optional but freely available, and there was more work being done on ventilation to ensure certain standards everywhere that was possible,” he said.

Johnston says one area the union will be pressuring its employer on is cleaning in the classroom, which had returned to regular, pre-COVID routines by June.

-With files from OMNI News