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An observation on schools and COVID-19. In both Ontario and BC, there is what I will call a "magical unicorn" narrative related to schools and COVID-19. In these provinces public health officials repeatedly assert that SARS-2 transmission in schools occurs rarely, or not at all
Cases occurring in students and teachers are (without rigour, without systematic testing in schools, without the use of phylogenetic analysis) asserted to have been acquired in the surrounding community.
These provinces have not controlled their epidemics well.
These provinces have not controlled their epidemics well.
In Atlantic Canada, epidemics have been controlled very well. Indeed, on a per capita basis, cumulative epidemic size in BC (despite low testing rates/high positivity) is 9.4 x that in Atlantic Canada. Ontario's epidemic is now (per capita) 13 x that in Atlantic Canada.
This is not to say Atlantic Canada hasn't had setbacks. Both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have had post-holiday surges. But when cases appear in Atlantic Canada, they often appear in schools. Those schools are managed aggressively: they are dismissed and cleaned.
E.g., https://globalnews.ca/news/7547696/nova-scotia-coronavirus-december-30/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7551662/coronavirus-nova-scotia-covid-19-cases-jan-2/
E.g., https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/two-more-positive-cases-of-covid-19-reported-at-new-brunswick-schools-1.5266630 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/covid-19-cases-orange-phase-coronavirus-1.5864361
So riddle me this: if cases in schools represent the end result of unfettered community spread, how come schools keep showing up early and prominently in a Canadian region that has controlled COVID-19 much better than the country as a whole?
Humour me here: could it be that more aggressive case finding and management of even single cases in schools is part of the approach to epidemic management that has put Atlantic Canada so far ahead of the "COVID-6" provinces in epidemic control?
