Ontario’s Science Advisory Table recommends reopening schools on a regional basis

Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table is recommending the province reopen schools on a regional basis.

In a statement posted online Saturday morning in response to Premier Doug Ford’s request for advice on the matter, the science table said schools should maintain public health measures to limit the spread of the virus.

“We would like to start our advice with a simple principle that our organizations have stated repeatedly: schools should be the last sector to close and the first sector to reopen,” the statement said.

Ford sent an open letter on Thursday asking for advice from Ontario professionals on school reopenings. The consultation comes after students have been learning online for almost six weeks during the pandemic’s deadly third wave, with a month of the school year remaining.

The science table said one month of in-person schooling would help schools reconnect with students and mitigate short- and long-term implications of closures on children’s mental health.

Although school closures are necessary during waves and an uptick in COVID-19 cases, the group wrote that they are harmful to the mental health of children, pointing to the increased ambulance calls and hospital admissions among youth for eating disorders.

Other implications of keeping children at home during the school year include unrealized social and economic benefits of education, loss of skill development, lifetime earnings, social connections and meals or health services that may not be available or accessible to certain families.

“Like so much of the pandemic, these harms and missed benefits are inequitable: those whom the pandemic is hitting hardest are also hardest hit by school closures.”

Science table modelling shows that only a small increase in cases would result from reopening schools, which most individual public health units believe they can handle.

The document was signed by 11 groups including the Hospital for Sick Children, children’s hospitals in Ottawa and London, Children’s Mental Health Ontario, Pediatricians Alliance of Ontario and the Council of Ontario Medical Officers of Health.

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