Chatham-Kent’s Medical Officer of Health is wishing for a crystal ball as parents, kids, and teachers all try to imagine what school will look like come September.
Dr David Colby says when it comes to the pandemic and the safe reopening of classrooms, so much can change in the next six weeks.
“I can’t speculate on that because there are too many variables. If a second wave happens, everything changes. If there’s a resurgence of the first wave, everything changes,” Colby says. “This uncertainty is reflected in the discussions we are having with the school boards.”
Colby says even when schools do reopen, we need to be careful and continue with personal hygiene safety measures to prevent another surge.
“When schools reopened in Israel, they had a surge of hundreds of cases as a result of that. We’re learning from other experiences around the world as we move forward and we’ll just make the best calls we can make at the time.”
Colby says that while he can enact tougher rules in Chatham-Kent than the province mandates – for example, keeping things like splash pads closed – that doesn’t apply to schools since the boards extend beyond his own jurisdiction.
