Schools to stay open

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce, in a social media post on Thursday morning, April 1, announced that schools in the province would remain open.

Schools were “critical for students’ mental health and learning,” he said, adding Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health David Williams had stated schools remained safe, despite a third wave of COVID-19 and the emergence of variants of the virus that are more contagious or result in more severe symptoms.

Minister Lecce said 98.7 percent of schools were still open, and 74 percent of those had no current ongoing cases of COVID-19.

“Students deserve to be in class,” he concluded.