Last night, Manitobans had the chance to take part in a town hall phone call with the province to ask any questions they had about the back to school plan.
17 people quizzed Manitoba’s Education Minister, Kelvin Goertzen and Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr Brent Roussin for an hour.
The topics of masks, substitute teachers, cohorts and contact tracing were covered as well as what can be done for immune-compromised families, students with special needs, and students with anxieties about going back to school.
A few people asked why the government decided against mandating masks for everyone in schools.
The guidelines issued by the province strongly recommend the use of masks for staff and students in grades 5 and up but only mandates masks for students on buses in grades 5 and up.
Roussin answered, saying the virus doesn’t have a high rate of transfer among younger children.
“The other thing is just the expectation of adherence to proper mask use, and so the amount of times that these kids would be touching their face and bringing the mask down is really counter-productive.”
One caller was worried that substitute teachers moving from school to school could be exposing themselves and multiple cohorts.
Goertzen referenced back to the beginning of the pandemic when personal care homes experienced outbreaks with ties to workers that moved between facilities, before adding that nurses do considerably different work than teachers or substitutes.
“Our expectation is that teachers will be that two metres removed from the students.”
On the topic of cohorts and contact tracing, Roussin said the order of business would be notifying school administrators, the school community, then the rest of Manitoba.
When a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, health officials will look into close contacts that spent more than 15 minutes within two metres of the positive case.
Roussin added that it’s possible an entire cohort could have to isolate, adding that it also could be a small number of close contacts.
The province says medically fragile students can stay home if they have a recommendation from a health professional to do so, other than that, students and those with common chronic conditions, are expected to be at school.
When asked about back to school anxieties, Goertzen brought up the mental health and well-being guidelines for divisions and suggested all divisions should have supports ready for students experiencing anxiety.
"There is going to be an increased anxiety among young people, but we don't know to what extent."
