TORONTO -- Sending kids back to school in Ontario has not been the 鈥渃atastrophe鈥 that some predicted and has largely been done safely, says an infectious diseases specialist.
A number of recent international studies, along with COVID-19 case data, have also backed up the idea that re-opening schools has not fuelled the pandemic.
Dr. Michael Silverman, medical director of the infectious diseases care program at St. Joseph鈥檚 Hospital in London, Ont., says there have been instances of children and teachers contracting COVID-19 since schools opened about six weeks ago 鈥渂ut it's a small number. There have not been mass outbreaks,鈥 he told CTV鈥檚 medical correspondent Avis Favaro.
鈥淎nd for the vast majority of children and the vast majority of teachers, this has been a safe and effective intervention that has led to children restarting their education, which has led to long-term great benefits for all of us.鈥
, as of Oct. 21 a total of 1,569 COVID-19 cases have been reported in publicly funded schools since Sept. 5. That includes 144 new cases reported Wednesday and 823 in the last two weeks.
Out of a total of 4,828 schools, 516 (10.7 per cent) have at least one reported case, and four, (.08 per cent) are closed.
Quebec, Canada鈥檚 hardest-hit province, with more than 96,000 cases of the virus and more than 6,000 deaths, says as of Oct. 20, it has 2,194 active cases in its public and private schools. Another 3,279 staff and students have recovered and returned to school.
, a total of 1,337 schools, or about 45 per cent of the province鈥檚 total, have reported at least one case since the beginning of the school year. But just .36 per cent of Quebec鈥檚 1.5 million students and staff have been infected.
Though Ontario鈥檚 virus caseload has sharply risen throughout September and October in what experts are describing as the second wave of the pandemic, there is no evidence that it鈥檚 connected to schools, says Silverman.
鈥淭he good news is that schools have opened, and we haven't had a catastrophe. And there was so much prediction that this is not going to be safe and we're going to have death mass deaths of teachers, and it's going to spur the epidemic. And although there's been small outbreaks in schools, they're small, they have not led to any catastrophe.鈥
But Silverman says he鈥檚 concerned about the levels of fear that continue to exist among teachers and parents.
鈥淚t's not good for public health for everybody to live in terror. And when鈥.there's something good happening we should also make the point that something good because there was so much controversy about it.鈥
A group of doctors, academics and scientists, called Masks4Canada, has produced a crowd-sourced . It says there are a minimum of 225 cases at 161 schools in B.C., and at least 664 cases at 345 schools in Alberta.
Health officials in B.C. said earlier this month that school-aged children made up less than 10 per cent of COVID-19 cases after schools reopened, which was consistent with earlier stages of the pandemic.
The province announced its first school outbreak Wednesday after three positive tests at a school in Okanagan.
Two new international studies have found no consistent relationship between in-person elementary and secondary schooling and the spread of the novel coronavirus.
concluded that school reopenings had no significant effect on overall case incidence and has not led to increases in pediatric cases of COVID-19. In some areas of Spain, once schools reopened, COVID-19 cases dropped. In others, trend lines stayed the same. But the researchers didn鈥檛 find anywhere where cases rose after kids went back to school.
The Catalan region in Spain indicated that in the first two weeks of opening, 87 per cent of primary cases in schools did not produce a secondary case and seven per cent infected one contact in their class.
covering close to 1,300 schools, almost 262,000 students and just over 78,000 staff in the U.S. reports that just three per cent of schools have more than five cases and 0.7 per cent have more than 10.
The daily case rate per 100,000 students has remained at 10 since mid-September, with 0.14 per cent of students as confirmed cases.
The dashboard also tracks how many schools are implementing mitigation measures, including mandatory masks for students and staff, daily at-home screening, physical distancing, and school bubbles.
Insights for Education, a Zurich-based foundation, from 191 countries between Feb. 10 and Sept. 29 showed widespread reopenings of schools 鈥渉as generally not been associated with rising COVID-19 infection rates.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 been assumed that opening schools will drive infections, and that closing schools will reduce transmission, but the reality is much more complex,鈥 Insights for Education founder and CEO Dr. Randa Grob-Zakhary said in a press release.
鈥淭he key now is to learn from those countries that are reopening effectively against a backdrop of rising infections.鈥
released last week found no elevated risk to childcare workers who remained on the job in the first three months of the pandemic. It tracked 57,000 childcare workers, about half of whom continued to work and half stayed home. After accounting for demographic factors, it found no difference in rates of infection between the two groups.
That is fuelling renewed calls for more school reopening south of the border. In the pandemic-battered United States, half of the country鈥檚 50 largest school systems are open, with 11 more planning a return to school, .
Pediatricians have been warning throughout the pandemic about the physical, mental and emotional toll that closed schools have on children.
in September that concluded: 鈥淎ccess to school resources for nutrition, health, and social supports are critical for many families. BC families reported impaired learning, increased child stress, and decreased connection during COVID-19 school closures, while global data show increased loneliness and declining mental health, including anxiety and depression.鈥
The detrimental effects are felt most acutely by the most vulnerable, including children with health conditions and special learning needs, along with single-parent and low-income families, those with unstable employment and housing, and children that are subject to abuse or neglect.
