INNISFAIL – With rising positive Delta variant COVID cases jumping to a pandemic high not seen since last May, and now considered a possible threat to the young, the provincial government has extended public health measures for six weeks and is doubling down on its vaccination strategy with a plan to roll out school-based vaccine clinics.
“We want to keep our kids as safe as possible, and moving learning forward at the same time. Now that we have that guidance, we can make sense of it, contextualize it for our school division and roll it out,” said Kurt Sacher, superintendent of schools for Chinook’s Edge School Division. “We respect they (government) are trying to do their best work in making sense of changing research. They are facing lots of pressure as well.”
On Aug. 13, the province once again changed course on its COVID public health policy. On the same day, 582 new cases were confirmed in the province, with 152 citizens being hospitalized. As of Aug. 13, the pandemic had claimed the lives of 2,332 residents.
The province had released a controversial plan on July 29 to lift nearly all of its COVID-19 measures by Aug 16.
However, with the Alberta government facing widespread criticism across the province, and even beyond provincial borders, that the plan was premature, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health, announced a new replacement strategy on Aug. 13. It will run until Sept. 27 and targets the young who are heading back to school on Sept. 1.
The new back-to-school COVID guidelines do not include mandated in-class masking but as of Sept. 7 temporary vaccination clinics will be offered to students from grades 7 to 12, as well as to teachers and staff. Hinshaw noted during her online news conference that current data shows only half of the province’s youth between the ages of 12 and 17 are fully vaccinated.
“The best choice we can make to protect ourselves and our children is to be fully immunized,” said Hinshaw, who was joined at the news conference by Education Minister Adriana LaGrange. “We have a strong ally on our side with vaccines. Having as many people immunized as possible will protect both those who have received their vaccines as well as those who are able yet to get one.”
The Aug. 13 announcement also included a mandatory isolation measure for 10 days for anyone with COVID-19 symptoms or a positive test result. While there is not a mandatory in-class masking policy there is one for school buses, which is part of the Aug. 13 directive that masks must be worn in publicly accessible transit, taxis and ride-shares. The announcement also included testing at assessment centres for any symptomatic individual.
Hinshaw’s reasoning
Hinshaw said her office has been watching local and international COVID-related data closely and “two items” emerged that led her to recommend the province adjust its approach.
She said current non-ICU hospitalizations in the province are trending “somewhat” higher than the province anticipated, from about 90 expected total cases to 146, which is 62 per cent over initial projections.
Secondly, she said the province is closely watching emerging trends from the United States about paediatric cases with the Delta variant. She added it was different from what was happening in the United Kingdom, which the province used to form its original decision. Hinshaw noted the United Kingdom experience showed the Delta variant did not adversely impact children any differently than in previous COVID waves. However, in the United States, hospitalizations with children have started to rise, significantly in states with lower overall immunization rates.
Figures now being reported in Canada show data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal a 27.3 per cent rise in the seven-day average for American COVID-19 hospital admissions among children from 0 to 17-years-old between the week of July 28 to Aug. 3, and the week of Aug. 4 to Aug. 10.
“Given this emerging evidence I want to further monitor these trends. I do not share this information to cause alarm,” she said, adding Alberta has not experienced a similar rise in equivalent cases with Alberta youth. Since July 1, there has only been seven reported cases in hospital with youth under the age of 18, said Hinshaw.
“Based on these developing factors I recommended that we pause the next step in our transition for a period of six weeks until Sept. 27,” she said. Hinshaw added this will allow the province to conduct further monitoring and allow more time to increase vaccination levels, which she emphasized is paramount for adults and older children to protect themselves and younger children around them.
Schools’ path forward
Sacher noted many COVID-related decisions are operational and left to staff to make, such as physical distancing, cohorting and mandatory masking, but he and senior officials will be consulting with board trustees at an Education Committee meeting on Aug. 18 for what is best for Chinook’s Edge.
“We are not going to proceed with any priority as far as specifics until we’ve talked to the board,” he said, noting there are different options available before the first day of school on Sept. 1.
“They (board) are representing their constituents, and they represent those voices of parents, so before we communicate out to our parents we want to talk with the board and make sure we are all on the same page, and we are meeting our needs for safety and learning forward, and meeting the need of the parent public.
“Our promise to parents is that we will get something out to them prior to schools’ opening,” said Sacher, adding COVID-related messaging to parents will be sent out by Aug. 26.
In the meantime, he said there’s plenty of work ahead to do, especially navigating through how the vaccination clinics are to be set up, a scenario not entirely foreign to the school division as it handled a government-administered HPV vaccine clinic about a decade ago.
“The board’s major concern is that we don’t move ahead with vaccinations unless we have parent permission, and I know from our parents that is critically important to them as that is in their sandbox – their decision, their family, their child and the board want to respect that,” said Sacher.
He added that while it can be a “tricky” situation to simultaneously deal with parents, the board and the province and come out of it with a satisfactory plan for all sides, he’s not expecting much debate around the totality of the Aug. 13 provincial announcement.
“It can be tricky at times depending on how things roll across the province. We are influenced how other jurisdictions respond to the message from governments. Our board has typically wanted us to respect those that have the expertise,” said Sacher. “We are not built with a high level of expertise, where Alberta Health is connected to the chief medical officer with changing research at their finger tips and they are constantly reviewing it.
“So, when they advise school divisions around masks and they mandate it like the way they have on school buses we will be aligning that. That won’t be debatable,” he said.
As for recent parental feedback, Sacher said there’s only been an “email or two” for feedback since the July 29 announcement.
“We may get a little more now that the (Aug. 13) announcement is out there but today I’ve had one email,” he said. “Prior to that, I may have had one or two emails and a phone call but very, very minimal.”
