Teachers Are Worried About The Decision To Remove The Five Day Isolation Rule For Covid

Two of Ontario’s major teachers’ unions expressed concerns Thursday about the province’s decision to end its mandatory COVID-19 isolation period days before thousands of students and teachers return to school in person. The Ontario Federation of Elementary Teachers and the Ontario Secondary Teachers Federation said they are concerned that allowing children and teachers to return to the classroom while still potentially contagious could cause the virus to spread faster in schools. They said this could endanger people’s health and likely cause further learning disabilities. “We’ll have students together in a classroom that doesn’t necessarily have a lot of space…we’ll have kids in the cafeteria eating together,” said Karen Littlewood, OSSTF president. “And without having to stay away or isolate, it’s not a matter of if we’re going to have an eighth or ninth wave, but when and how soon it’s going to happen with everyone going to school.” A spokesman for Education Minister Steven Lecce declined to comment Thursday, saying the province’s top doctor had addressed the issues a day earlier. Dr. Kieran Moore announced on Wednesday that people who test positive for COVID-19 no longer need to self-isolate for five days, but can return to work or school once their fever is gone and their other symptoms have improved for at least 24 hours. He said people should then wear a mask in all settings for 10 days after the onset of their symptoms and stay away from high-risk environments such as long-term care homes during that time. The doctor pointed to improvements such as better ventilation and environmental cleaning in schools, as well as more hand washing and immunization, saying these mean the province can now take a “more tolerant approach”. Schools across the province will begin a new school year next week without COVID-19 restrictions for the first time since the pandemic began. Canada’s largest school board said Thursday it will continue to lead public health and provincial government officials on health and safety measures. “Students and staff should continue to self-assess daily before entering school or board buildings and stay home if they are sick according to the revised screening tool provided by the Ontario government,” said Ryan Bird, a spokesperson for Toronto Region. The School Committee states in its announcement. David Mastin, ETFO’s first vice-president, said the union was concerned the change in guidance would lead to more schools “of the same kind of chaos” they have suffered over the past two years. “This is a government that for the last month claims to be fighting for a steady and uninterrupted return to school… and then they go and do things that could also lead to a very unstable and very intermittent… return. for students in the fall,” he said. Both he and Littlewood questioned the level of improvement in ventilation in schools, saying HEPA filters are not as widely installed as they should be. They also said the government was offloading responsibility to workers by forcing them to decide when they could return to work. Unions outside the education sector also expressed concern about the change on Thursday. Lana Payne, the national president of Unifor, said telling people to return to work while they are still sick “defies common sense” and could lead to more spread of the virus in workplaces, particularly warehouses, manufacturing and other gathering places. “Even if an employee has paid sick days, which many don’t, how do they tell their employer they’re using a sick day when the (supervisor) medical doctor says they can work?” she said in a statement. “The whole burden of the disease cannot rest on the shoulders of the workers and the health system.” Ontario currently offers workers three days of paid sick leave for absences related to COVID-19, such as tests, vaccinations, isolation or caring for relatives with the virus. The government recently extended this program until the end of March 2023. Dr Gerald Evans, an infectious disease expert at Queen’s University, said telling people they could go to work as soon as they started feeling better as long as they wore a mask “puts everyone at risk” and would only exacerbate ongoing staff shortages. – or their children – get sick. “I think that’s a political view that if you just put everybody back to work, even if they’re slightly sick with a mask on the economy, it’s going to keep roaring along,” he said. “This is a completely naive view of how economies work because economies need people to be able to go to work. And this strategy is really a strategy to keep people out of work because we’re going to have widespread infections,” he said. . . “This is no way to handle the pandemic at this point.” – With files from Liam Casey This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 1, 2022. Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press

title: “Teachers Are Worried About The Decision To Remove The Five Day Isolation Rule For Covid Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-02” author: “Steve Crosby”

title: “Teachers Are Worried About The Decision To Remove The Five Day Isolation Rule For Covid Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-14” author: “Edwin Estes”

title: “Teachers Are Worried About The Decision To Remove The Five Day Isolation Rule For Covid Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-31” author: “William Trombley”