Photo Credit: Government of Alberta

By Shane Clausing

School reopening

All available data being used as Alberta prepares to reopen schools safely: Hinshaw

Aug 21, 2020 | 5:30 AM

As teachers and students get ready to head back to the classroom on September 1, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, says the province has looked at all the available data from around the world to ensure that schools open up safely.

“To open school’s safely, my recommendations were based on the review of all available evidence, including summaries by many groups such as the European Centre for Disease Control, and Alberta Health Services’ COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Group,” explained Hinshaw.

“I looked at data on infection rates and transmission patterns by age and at models of school closure and the impacts of community transmission levels on school re-opening experiences in other countries.”

“There is a dizzying array of information available on schools and COVID-19 transmission in children.”

While there is lots of data out there, Dr. Hinshaw said that she and her team were able to find some data that stands out.

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For example, Hinshaw pointed to studies that have said children that are infected with COVID-19 are more likely to be mildly sick and fewer are hospitalized. She says studies have also shown that younger children are not able to drive community transmission the same way as adults do.

While she said it is less likely that younger students would transmit the virus, the risk of potentially getting exposed or transmitting the virus grows as a child gets older.

While the risk of infection grows as children get older, Hinshaw says there are studies and success stories that the infection rate amongst teens is still low, even before measures were put in place.

“There are several case reports from around the world including Australia, Ireland, France and Finland where a total of 17 COVID-19 cases in all these countries were identified as having attended a school while infectious.

“Detailed reports of these cases concluded that of the over 1,900 contacts who were identified between all these cases in these four countries, on follow up, resulted in only one case of secondary transmission. This was before any COVID-19 modifications were in place in schools and this included high school settings in Ireland and Australia.”

However, as classrooms gear up to let students back in, even with modifications put in place and success stories around the world, Hinshaw says there are still risks.

“We can reasonably expect some infections at schools. Our job is to limit the number of these infections, prevent large outbreaks and prevent onward spread of these sporadic cases.”

While some have questioned why the province is reopening schools in September, Hinshaw says there’s a lot of important factors to the decision.

“School is about more than education. It is equally important to a child’s socialization, mental health, food security through school nutrition programs and protection from other harms that may result from additional stress and financial hardship if parents are not able to work.”

During her Thursday press conference, Hinshaw announced that Alberta Health has also updated their guidance on how they will respond to students and staff that are showing COVID-19 symptoms in schools and what protocols will be followed if COVID cases are found in the schools.

However, she reiterated that if the provinces back to school plan is to succeed, everyone needs to work together.