This is the part that made me tear up. Please read this thread and know this is happening across the province.
What's happening in Ontario isn't working, and the plans in place will make it worse.
With full-size classes, every time there's COVID-19 in a classroom that's an 10-15 *more* families & their communities instantly impacted than we'd have with classes capped at 15. That's more people at risk, more people in these lines, less ability to test & trace. #onted #onpoli
Parents are asked to keep kids home even with mild symptoms, but the government hasn't sufficiently expanded #sickdays to enable to do that. Parents will send sick kids to school because staying home could mean missing groceries or rent, or losing a job.
The logistics of testing are a nightmare. On Wednesday a dear friend's son was sent home from public school with a runny nose. She's a teacher at a private school and neither can return without negative tests for both of them. Finding a test has been chaos.
Local drive-thru centres are shutting down due to high volume, places that take appointments have full inboxes, and waits can take a full day. She was finally able to find appointments for them for today, hours from where they live, and has no idea when there will be results.
The centres running the testing are doing their best with limited resources. If you're going for a test, please know the staff there to help you are stretched thin and are doing everything they can. This isn't the fault of the person swabbing your nose or running the line.
But this is not sustainable. Schools have just opened and we know kids start getting runny noses this time every year. This was predictable, and the plan as it stands will not work. Something has to give, and we don't have time to wait and see what happens. It's a crisis now.
We can't have virtually everything open as usual, full class sizes, inadequate sick days, insufficient testing capacity, out-of-control community transmission, outdoor activities coming inside, and flu season during a pandemic and expect it to work.
We are failing now. #onpoli
Ignoring this isn't an option. We need the govt to take serious action now.
What is the metric?
How many cases?
How many deaths?
How many school closures?
How many sick kids crying in the cold?
What does it take for our health to become more important than our wants?
#onpoli
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