Thread by @perreaux

Quebec reports 835 active school cases as of Friday, before primary schools reopened. As of last Monday, the first day of online school, it was 90.

You can expect this spike to continue this week as school surveillance, one of its undervalued pandemic functions, kicks in.

There will be many people shouting how the spike that will take place this week proves schools are unsafe. Don't listen to them.

Just to be clear: Quebec's school cases rose from 90 to 835 in a week where all school was online for the simple reason students, parents and teachers were once again communicating.
They will now rise even more because teachers are watching.

At some point they will also rise because staff and students are infecting each other, but you won't see that for a while yet, certainly not this week.

Just to add to my thread yesterday about Quebec school COVID-19 statistics...
For yesterday, the first day back in class for primary school, Quebec reported 1,176 active school cases, an increase of 41 per cent from Friday's report.

I add it just to drive home my earlier point about the surveillance effect of schools.

Obviously 1,176 kids didn't contract COVID-19 in 636 schools from the first day of school and a week of online learning.

I expect that number to rise rapidly all week.

As foretold, a panelist on La Joute said it only took three days for schools to produce hundreds of new cases.
It usually takes 5-6 days for an infected person to show symptoms.
It takes a day or two to get test & results.
Most cases found now are still holiday infections.

We would start to know more next week except there's a confounding factor: High school, where infections are much more prevalent, is still on vacation.

Sorry, not holiday, they're doing online learning. I'll let high school parents say if it's a holiday!