Every eye on Quebec and Alberta schools like other areas brings a focus back to personal learning

Three weeks after the hot COVID-19 provinces of Alberta and Quebec reopened schools to personal learning, things continue to fall in both regions. The question on every parent’s mind: Can it survive?

Parents across most of the country are keeping a close eye on schools after they reopened in January after an extended holiday, amid a second wave that had only just begun to subside. Southern Ontario was the only part of Canada where many schools have been closed to online-only learning. Schools in Ottawa will open Monday while the Toronto, Windsor and Hamilton districts wait until Feb. 10 for their earliest reopening.

The country is also vigilant as viral changes are more easily spread, especially in Ontario and Alberta so far. “The new changes could throw a string into all plans, including schools,” said Kirsten Fiest, an epidemiologist at the University of Calgary.

The reopening of schools in the pandemic is always controversial but there is still a strong debate in Quebec. On Friday, a Superior Court judge heard final arguments between the government and parents who went to court to request an online learning option. In Canada, only Ontario offers a full-time online option for all primary and secondary school students. Controversy has also erupted when the Quebec government refused to install air purifiers in classrooms.

But in Quebec, hundreds of room closures to prevent spread have made it possible to find that new daily cases for people under 20 have fallen from a seven-day average of 465 cases on Jan. 10 to around 300 a.m. this week.

In Alberta, the peak was in early December but it has also followed a downward trend through three weeks of school. In both regions, overall cases among all ages have fallen. Alberta decided late last week to start reopening the economy, including restaurants. Quebec maintains a wide closure and curfew.

Schools are receiving higher attention for a good cause, according to Dr. Fiest. In the autumn, the children went back to school amid very little community dispersal. Things in schools and the wider community grew during the fall until hospitals in such a state of disrepair closed most services and activities and restricted social gatherings.

This time the “burden of affairs” in the community is high, even though it is declining, and Dr Fiest said she was hopeful this trend would continue.

“We have not yet found and analyzed communications. We have little awareness of how the disease is spread. We have not done enough to separate older students. It’s winter, ”she said. “There are legitimate solutions but we haven’t used them.”

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One worrying sign in Quebec is that the decline in new daily cases in the 0-9 year old age groups is slowing as working age groups fall. Epidemiologists say there will be a decline in the 10-19 year old group that could also stop falls as high school children are more capable of spreading the virus than younger children.

In Quebec, everyone between the ages of 10 and 60 saw a big spike in cases during the 25-to-32-day Christmas school break while things among younger children remained relatively stable, before the fall began. The Albertans had a smaller, temporary rise in overall holiday issues before a downward trend began.

In Northern Ontario, public health officials are conducting major voluntary tests in three schools in Sudbury following an outbreak. Quebec is also conducting major tests in some school hotspots, as well as serology tests to study 22 schools in four neighborhoods to see how many people received COVID-19.

Kate Zinszer, an epidemiologist at the University of Montreal’s school of public health working on the serology study, said these efforts are only the beginning of a gaping data gap that will prevent an outbreak.

“It is so difficult for a researcher not to have access to good data,” said Dr. Zinszer. “We’re just not responding enough, and we’re not getting enough progress in our approach. We should be monitoring rapid tests, saliva samples. ”

Dr Zinszer said schools should be monitored more closely to protect teachers, students and their families, but also because of the community scrutiny they could provide.

“Primary schools in particular are not the hotspots we thought they would be, but of course there are connections in schools and the opportunity for referral,” she said. “We don’t yet know what their role is in community dispersal, and they could be such a great window into what’s happening in the community. ”

Both Dr. Zinszer and Dr. Fiest say opening schools is the right move even though plans to return to school are not good.

“If schools remained completely closed I don’t think they would change the route so much without a wide closure,” said Dr Fiest. “But again we missed an opportunity to understand what is happening and keep students and teachers safer. ”

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