Chatham-Kent's Medical Officer of Health says it's hard to predict exactly how things will pan out as students return to class during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With classrooms set to start back up this week, Dr. David Colby said that all the necessary efforts have been done to ensure a safe return for students, parents and staff.
"To some degree, this is going to have to be a wait and see game," said Colby. "We've done all the planning not only on a provincial level but on a local level. The medical officer of health from Sarnia-Lambton and I have been working with the school boards to make the environment as safe as possible. We'll hope for the best."
As schools resume across the globe, Colby said there is conflicting data on whether or not students returning to class has resulted in a rise of COVID-19 cases.
"In some countries, there have been outbreaks related to kids going back to school and in other countries, there hasn't been much of a problem," he explained. "It seems that kids not only get a milder syndrome if they get infected but they also seem not to be the main source of outbreaks for some reason. They don't spread it as easily as adults do."
Colby said one of the main challenges of heading back to school will be implementing physical distancing in the classrooms. If there is a positive COVID-19 case within a school or an outbreak, Colby said there are in-depth procedural guidelines in place for how to deal with the situation.
"We do have very detailed provincial protocols for all kinds of scenarios," he said. "For students who become ill at school and then have to be isolated and in most cases tested...There are other protocols for if a positive test shows up and how many students have to be isolated. We have very strong provincial guidelines to do that. It will be the local health units that operationalize those isolation plans."
According to their respective directors of education, around 15 per cent of the Lambton Kent District School Board's total student body has opted for remote learning to start the school year while 12-13 per cent of students will be going remote in St. Clair Catholic District School Board.
