Dr. Hinshaw regrets confusing Covid-19 orders as schools reopen

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Alberta’s top doctor apologized Monday for anxiety and confusion a back to school public health order caused over the weekend, and she also flagged a major Covid-19 outbreak at a Calgary church. The order issued Saturday spells out that schools do not have to ensure two metres of spacing when students, staff or visitors are seated at desks or tables.

Chief medical health officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw said it’s not a departure from the guidance she announced in early August and that the order was meant to provide clarity for school administrators.

She said, I am very sorry that unfortunately the opposite has happened and that this tool, which was meant to clarify, has caused more confusion. That was not the intention. The timing was not meant to hide information but to be transparent and that ideally the order would have been published sooner.

The order codifies Alberta’s policy requiring masks in schools. Staff and students in Grades 4 to 12 must cover their faces when they’re in common and shared indoor areas where physical distancing cannot be maintained like hallways and buses.

However, the rules are eased for classrooms so that masks don’t get in the way of learning and communication. Where two metres of spacing can’t be achieved.

Hinshaw said students should be seated in rows so that they are less likely to cough or sneeze directly into the face of classmates. We were trying to balance the benefits and harms of masking and figure out how we could best achieve the most appropriate Covid-19 prevention, while at the same time not impeding some of the important functions of school. Anyone who attended the Kidanemhret Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the past two weeks should get tested for Covid-19 and stay home if they have symptoms. Children who were at the church in the past two weeks should not go to school this week as a precaution.

Health officials are still tracing contacts and trying to understand the full scope of the outbreak and Hinshaw said it’s too early to know what may have sparked it.

She said, It is critical, as always, that members of this church be supported and not targeted or stigmatized. An outbreak can occur anywhere and those involved need our compassion in this difficult time.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says he's accepted all along that Covid-19 infections in schools are inevitable and that's no reason to keep classrooms shuttered.

His remarks come after a school in Okotoks, south of Calgary, delayed its planned reopening because a staff member was diagnosed with the Covid-19. At another school in Calgary, the principal, assistant principal and administrative secretary were forced into a 14-day quarantine after someone at the school tested positive.

On Tuesday Kenney said, It’s always been clear that there’d be some outbreaks. And from time to time there’ll be classes or even schools that have to suspend operations for a while calling his province’s back-to-school guidance a strong plan. The inevitability of that should not be a reason for us indefinitely to keep the schools closed.

Kenney also responded Tuesday to calls, including from Alberta Teachers’ Association, to restrict classroom sizes. Kenney called a demand from the NDP to limit class sizes to 15 unrealistic. That would require opening 13,000 new classes, building 800 new schools, training and certifying 13,000 new teachers at an estimated cost of $4 billion. That’s not a plan to reopen the schools. That’s a plan to keep them shut.

Education Minister Adriana LaGrange is expected to announce Wednesday how $260 million in federal dollars for schools is to be spent.

Kenney said, we appreciate the additional federal funding, but there is no world in which you could reduce class sizes in half and reopen the schools for the current school year. It's simply fictitious. It has nothing to do with reality.