Return to school delayed until Jan. 5

Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore announced on Thursday, Dec. 30, that the expected return of children to schools on Monday, Jan. 3, was being delayed until Wednesday, Jan. 5, as a result of the rapid spread in COVID-19 cases involving the Omicron variant across the province.

He also stated that testing for COVID-19 would be restricted to those considered most vulnerable to severe symptoms from the virus, such as the elderly and those with compromised immune systems as well as employees of hospitals and long-term care and retirement homes, and that everyone else if they developed symptoms should assume they had the Omicron variant and isolate from others.

That isolation period, formerly at 10 days, would be reduced to five days of the person involved had been fully-vaccinated against COVID-19, he said. Those who weren’t vaccinated or only partially so should still stick to the 10-day quarantine.

On Dec. 30, he reported, 13,807 new cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in Ontario.

That, and others similar numbers in recent days, might “feel overwhelmingly high,” he said. The number of COVID-19 cases in Ontario was doubling every three days.

However, preliminary data indicated the Omicron variant was 54 percent less likely to result in severe symptoms that the Delta variant.

As a result, the number of cases requiring hospitalizations or admission to intensive care units was not rising quickly.

Despite that, he expected given the “sheer infectiousness” of Omicron that hospitals would still be hard-pressed to treat severe cases.

Asked why the return to schools was only being delayed by two days when other provinces were opting for a week, Dr. Moore said measures already taken made schools “very safe” in Ontario.

The additional two days would allow for some additional measures, including “N95” or equivalent respirator face masks for all teachers and staff, and three-layer cloth masks for all children, he added.

On top of that, 11-million rapid-antigen tests had been distributed to schoolchildren before their Christmas break, he said. That should also help keep infected youngsters out of schools.

Some high-risk school activities would be paused, though, such as music classes and “high-risk” sports, he noted.