Peel schools will not be reopening on Tuesday

Decision made unilaterally by Dr. Lawrence Loh

Article content

Peel Region schools will be closed as of Tuesday.

The decision has been made unilaterally by Dr. Lawrence Loh, Peel’s medical officer of health, who will be exercising his discretionary powers to enact such closures under Sec. 22 of the Ontario Health Protection and Promotion Act.

Loh intends to keep schools closed for at least two weeks, until April 18.

The reaction to the news was varied.

Many parents also reacted with frustration to the last-minute closure, which gives them less than 24 hours to prepare for the disruption. However, teachers union representatives celebrated the shutdown and took credit for forcing the closure.

“We’ve been working behind the scenes all weekend … to make this happen,” wrote Ryan Harper, an Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation vice-president for Peel, on social media. “It looks lie our efforts may have worked.”

Education Minister Stephen Lecce previously announced Ontario schools would stay open for the four-week duration of the Ontario-wide shutdown. Both Lecce and Ontario chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams have maintained schools remain safe and there has been hardly any in-school transmission of COVID-19 occur provincewide.

Article content

Paediatric experts have consistently voiced the need to keep schools open and 300 healthcare professionals recently sent a letter to Lecce and Ontario Premier Doug Ford calling on them to keep schools open.

“We know from the extensive school testing that we do that we have seen minimal transmission of COVID in schools — in other words, almost no secondary cases,” said Dr. Martha Fulford, an infectious diseases specialist based out of Hamilton who focuses on paediatric issues, in response to the news out of Peel. “We should be making the decisions based on the data we have and on the overwhelming evidence that kids do better with in-person learning. We should not be making decisions based on politics or on the specific leanings of a single MOH.

“If there is good data showing schools are a problem, this should be shared as it would make a decision like this more understandable.”

Toronto Public Health reiterated on Monday that their schools will be re-opening as planned. “TPH will continue to manage risk on a school-by-school basis, taking immediate and appropriate action to address these complex outbreaks,” read a statement shared with media.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown wasn’t supportive of the news.

“Don’t close schools,” he told the Sun.

Instead, Brown says either the manufacturing and warehouse facilities driving spread should be closed or those essential workers should be prioritized for vaccination.

“The same old approach isn’t working,” added Brown. “We have been locked down since Nov. 23. “Canadians would prefer having their packages delayed than children not in school learning.”

afurey@postmedia.com