Open letter calls on B.C. to beef up COVID protocols in schools

Just days before most students are set to return to school in B.C., calls are growing for the province to ramp up COVID-19 safety protocols in classrooms.

The ‘Protect Our Province BC’ group has penned an open letter to B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix and Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside to call on the B.C. government to take action as families prepare to send their kids back to school for the new year.

“Roughly half a million students are set to return to British Columbian schools in a matter of weeks, for their third Unsafe September. Each and every child deserves to be in school without getting sick. Each one deserves equitable access to their education. And each one deserves meaningful protection from COVID-19 (and now also Monkeypox),” the letter reads, in part.”

The letter notes schools are “indoor congregate settings” where children and staff spend several hours a day together in close proximity. These spaces are “too often poorly ventilated,” the group adds, with one member, Dr. Lyne Filiatrault, noting, “Schools, just like children, are not islands.”

This contradicts arguments from health authorities in B.C., along with independent specialists like Dr. Brian Conway with the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, who insist schools do not amplify the spread of the virus, but mirror transmission rates in the wider community.

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“We know what to do to prevent harm from happening. The federal government knows this, and is providing B.C. with $11.9 million dollars as part of the Safe Return to Class Fund ‘to ensure the air in our classrooms is as clean as possible for students, teachers, and staff,'” the letter continues, noting now is the time to take action — not later.

Pointing to infection rates and hospitalizations over the course of the Omicron wave, Protect Our Province BC says the virus can have long-lasting impacts on children in various ways. It also cites what is happening in some jurisdictions in the U.S., where the group says schools have been forced to close or switch to virtual learning because of outbreaks and a lack of precautions.

The group worries that by resuming classes with no further safety precautions will “predictably lead to rampant COVID-19 infections and reinfections within schools with subsequent spread to the community.”

“As an added bonus, putting all of these layers in place to reduce school and community transmission means that parents will miss less work due to infection, won’t have to isolate with sick children at home, and won’t bring COVID-19 into their workplaces, which benefits everyone and the economy,” the letter explains.

Back to school COVID mitigation strategies

Protect Our Province BC is using an acronym to help get its point and proposed mitigation strategies across.

SMART calls for students, staff, and teachers to Stay home when they’re symptomatic, for people to Mask up, for Air cleaners to be available in all classrooms, for indoor air to be Refreshed, and for Test, trace, and isolate policies to be brought in.

The group is calling for the province’s strategy to be a collective responsibility, rather than an individual one.

The letter comes just days after the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) published its latest recommendations for the return to class.

The advisory recommends those who are able to get vaccinated against COVID-19 do so and that the schools encourage the sharing of “evidence-based information and promote opportunities to be vaccinated in partnership with public health and the local medical health officer.”

The BCCDC’s advisory also notes that mask-wearing will remain optional and only recommended.

You can read the full letter here.