The data just doesn’t support school shutdowns or teachers moving up in the queue for COVID-19 vaccinations, according to York Region medical officer of health Dr. Karim Kurji.
“I think we have to be mindful of the fact that whatever we hear about Toronto and Peel doesn’t always apply to us,” said Kurji during an update to regional councillors April 8. “I know there’s a lot of pressure on us to be vaccinating teachers, but when we look epidemiologically at the risk teachers face, it is lower than the risk of other groups.”
When the province announced its second phase of its vaccination rollout earlier this week, teachers are now included among the priority groups.
“If we had the vaccines, there is no question we would comply with as many of these pressures because we understand the concerns of the teachers. We have still been looking at ways we could address the concerns of the teachers,” he said.
Kurji said that COVID-19 cases in schools, for the most part, have not caused hospitalizations, and the virus has not been spread within the school environment, according to the data.
The voluntary asymptomatic testing clinics completed through the province have had less than a one per cent positivity rate. In York Region, no school cases have yet been found through that testing, according to the province’s reporting.
“We feel it is important to keep schools open, while monitoring the situation,” he said.
Kurji said that there have been school closures, however, they have been closed due to operational reasons and staffing challenges and not due to outbreaks.
“I know we’ve been under a lot of pressure to try to close those schools. However, we believe that our schools in York Region have a lower level of transmission occurring largely due to all the processes that have been put in place,” he said.
Kurji pointed to the cohorting of classrooms as one of the processes that had been successful.
“We do not believe that our students or teachers are necessarily at increased risk by going to school,” he said. “This is a situation of robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we were to pause the over-60 immunizations in order to move over to, say, teachers, then you would be looking at not being able to prevent higher mortality and hospitalization levels in that group."
“I believe that to be true, but could we get some supporting data for that?” asked Newmarket Mayor John Taylor. “These are all data-driven decisions but we don’t often get the data to explain the decision.”
“This is a question that’s just building and building. It would be nice to just have some clear data.”
Kurji said he would share the data, and that it was based on morbidity and mortality information.
Taylor also asked if there was a reason that rapid testing wasn’t being done in schools, as there are large numbers of kids having to be tested due to the cohort policy and having to miss school for three to five days while they await their results.
“The reason there are so many children being tested is because we had implemented a further measure, which is one-symptom screening. We have been working with the Ministry of Education to have additional vendors provide testing,” said Kurji. “Unfortunately, the need is still greater than the supply.
Kurji said he would take the suggestion to the school team at the public health unit to see if there was anything further that could be done on the issue.
