Thread by @jeffgilchrist

COVID-19: Ottawa and Ontario Back to School Status

Some students go back next week in Ottawa so where are we at with the current BA.5 wave? Wastewater levels stopped going down for the past couple of weeks ( gilchrist.ca/jeff/COVID-19/… ). We need clear air in classrooms #FASSST!🧵1/

Unfortunately they never went back down to low levels. You can see from the graph that after the last few variant waves (Delta, BA.1, BA.2, and now BA.5) that the new baseline level keeps getting higher and higher between waves. 2/

The current wastewater level is almost the same as the peak of the BA.1 wave we had back in January when students still had to wear masks in school but now students are returning to school at similar wastewater levels without any mask requirements. 3/

Unfortunately not much has been done to ensure every classroom in Ontario has proper ventilation and filtration with testing and monitoring to ensure systems are actually functioning properly and providing adequate air quality. 4/

The most frustrating part is that clean air has surprisingly large educational benefits, not just from COVID-19 but everything and will be continuously helpful going forward. 5/

Even before the pandemic started, articles like this were being written that found a $1,000 investment can raise a class's test scores by as much as cutting class size by a third ( vox.com/2020/1/8/21051… ). H/T: @kprather88 6/

If we were talking about providing clean and safe drinking water to children at schools, would there be as much push back or controversy about investing in filtering and treating water to ensure kids do not get sick and remain healthy? 7/

Why has it been so difficult to convince governments to install proper ventilation and filtration systems with monitoring for the air that our children breathe all day long then, especially when the benefits extend far beyond just one virus? 8/

Kids breathe considerably more air at school than they drink water from the school taps. Air quality experts have been pushing for improvements in schools for years now such as these (

https://twitter.com/joeyfox85/status/1563721451617796096

). 9/

The classrooms that don't have good enough air quality means the children in those classrooms are at higher risk for infections from multiple pathogens and increased exposure to allergens so more likely to get sick and miss school. 10/

Without good ventilation, what is the next layer of protection that is variant-proof from viruses including COVID-19? That would be high quality well-fitted masks. 11/

The American Academy of Pediatrics provides some information for what parents should know about masking and child development, specifically that there is no evidence that masks harm kids' language development (

https://twitter.com/AmerAcadPeds/status/1563241280741994496

). 12/

Research has also shown, "wearing a mask in school does not hinder a young child’s ability to learn language, even if they have hearing loss" ( news.miami.edu/stories/2021/0… ). H/T: @DataDrivenMD 13/

On the other hand research has also shown that "trouble remembering or concentrating" are common symptoms among children suffering from Long COVID ( medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-c… ) and ( thelancet.com/journals/lanch… ). H/T: @DataDrivenMD 14/

PCR test positivity in Ottawa is also very high at 14% and has been rising again over the past week, while the # of tests being done has remained at very low levels ( gilchrist.ca/jeff/COVID-19/… ). 15/

@OttawaHealth wanted to remind people that the BA.5 wave is not over and the levels of COVID-19 in our community are still high so it is very important to keep wearing masks indoors and even outdoors in crowded public settings (

https://twitter.com/OttawaHealth/status/1562818641820655616

). 16/

Looking at Ontario as a whole, hospitalizations for COVID-19 and test positivity have leveled off so this BA.5 wave seems to be in an extended holding pattern and well above the 2020-2021 average (

https://twitter.com/Billius27/status/1562889979701133312

). 17/

So we are starting the 3rd school year of the pandemic with many indicators higher than any previous September along with severe staffing shortages at hospitals in Ontario where some ERs have been closing because they don't have enough healthcare workers to run them. 18/

We know that schools are hubs of infection and cases are spread from schools to communities, including younger siblings so things may soon become worse (

https://twitter.com/jeffgilchrist/status/1552268219792195585

). 19/

The Omicron variants have been more severe in our youngest children with current hospitalization rates of children 0-4 being 17x higher than children age 5-11 and 12.5x higher than children 12 to 19 right before school starts ( publichealthontario.ca/en/data-and-an… ). 20/

Children 0-4 are also currently being hospitalized at a rate 2.6x more than adults 40-59. Only adults 60+ are being hospitalized at a higher rate per 100,000 population than children 0-4. 21/

For people that still think the Omicron variants are "mild", despite many people some immunity protection infection/vax, the sheer number of people getting infected is resulting in a higher average number of deaths per day since Omicron than before (

https://twitter.com/TRyanGregory/status/1563519299092115460

).22/

Many more people will be impacted by Long COVID than dying so it is still in your best interest and those you love to do what you can to prevent becoming infected and re-infected. The younger you are, the longer you will have to live with whatever damage the virus might cause.23/