Ontario urged to expand COVID testing in schools in the wake of “frightening” results in Thorncliffe Park

Ontario is urged to expand staff and student testing, especially at hotspots, after the first site in Toronto uncovered about 19 cases in an elementary school.

“When it comes to our schools and the safety of our students … we need a robust and fully staffed school testing program,” said Marit Stiles, New Democrats MP, her party’s education critic and former trustee of the Toronto District School Table.

“Why, after all these months, is the government still reacting to this virus instead of listening to the experts, planning ahead and investing the necessary resources to keep our schools open and our students safe?”

Last week, Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced the asymptomatic and voluntary testing program for four areas of the province with a high number of COVID-19 cases – Toronto, Peel, York and Ottawa – letting the councils of administration and their local public health units how to conduct the test and where.

Toronto public and Catholic councils have announced starting locations for the tests, which began last Thursday at elementary school in Thorncliffe Park, where 19 cases, including 18 students and a staff member, were found that first day. Testing was to continue this week.

The council and public health said the school did not need to be closed because the cases were not transmitted in the school but rather in the community, which has a much higher positivity rate.

Stiles said the province “has asked companies to shut down, people have been asked to spend more and more time away from their families, and we owe it to staff, students and their families to test as much as possible.”

And, he added, “for me, the problem is protecting staff and students by knowing the extent” of COVID-19 cases, especially after the holidays. “If we are to return to class safely and orderly this new year, we need to know exactly how many students have COVID.”

Liberal leader Steven Del Duca said the 19 cases found in Thorncliffe Park are a “frightening number” and show that the government should have started earlier.

“This will give the parents a lot of anxiety,” he told reporters. “Ontario is not testing the way we should be … this government is really behind the game.”

Green leader Mike Schreiner said the Thorncliffe Park result “highlights the need for further testing, particularly in hot areas.”

In the York region, public health is working with two local councils – public and Catholic – on school tests and hopes to reach about 4,000 students in the next three weeks, said Scott Cholewa, head of infectious disease control.

It has targeted 30 schools and will hold post-school tests in local high schools. Some will be areas with recent or current cases, and others in areas where schools have not had cases – which he will use as a sort of control group to “get a basic sense, asymptomatic positive level” – and areas they are “testing. deserts ”in the region, especially King Township and Georgina.

High schools were chosen as test locations because “they have gyms and have outside access or are larger and can accommodate people, and the facility can allow one entry, one way out and no mixing of people entering for testing. “Cholewa said, but both elementary and secondary students will be eligible.

The saliva test will be used, “which is a less invasive form of testing” than the typical nasopharyngeal swab, but with comparable accuracy, he added.

He said two different school test sites will be set up this week, two the following week, and the week before the holidays will have three sites.

Lecce said the provincial test program is already up and running, given the results of the Thorncliffe Park school.

“Identify COVID cases, isolate them or move them from the school, so as not to have speakers within the school. This is what the program is designed for. That’s what’s happening, “he said.

Furthermore, he added “part of the benefit of having asymptomatic testing in those high-risk communities … is to provide us with more data to better understand not only where the risk is, but how we can further counter it.”

Stiles said she and MPP France Gélinas, her party’s health critic, called for a provincial school surveillance program in the summer and “it never happened.”

He said he can’t understand why the government took so long to act.

Lecce, however, noted that “there are 86% of schools in this province that have no active cases” and that the province continues to announce “further surge funding” for schools in areas with growing COVID cases.

Provincial statistics released on Monday show that 670 or 14 percent of 4,828 schools have known cases of COVID-19, but Thorncliffe’s findings question this statistic.

Four schools in Ontario are now closed due to outbreaks.