Peel Health recently published guidelines telling parents to isolate from their own children for 14 days if one of their classmates tests positive for COVID. Experts are calling the measure “cruel.”
Peel Health recently published guidelines telling parents to isolate from their own children for 14 days if one of their classmates tests positive for COVID. Experts are calling the measure "cruel."
Furthermore, experts claim that there is no science whatsoever to back up such severe measures, which apply to children even of day-care age.
According to the Toronto Sun, Dr. Susan Richardson, an infectious disease specialist and professor emerita at the University of Toronto, said:
"This is cruel punishment for a child, especially for younger children, 4-10 years old. Shutting a child off from their parents and siblings for up to 14 days in this manner could produce significant and long-lasting emotional and psychological effects."
"This does not seem practically possible and is highly likely to cause harm to children who would already be experiencing considerable distress with having to remain at home," also commented Dr. Tess Clifford, who directs the Psychology Clinic at the prestigious Queen's University.
The pamphlet distributed to concerned parents by Peel authorities is reproduced here below:
Dr. Martha Fulford, a pediatrics and infectious disease expert at Hamilton Health Science, emailed the Sun the following:
"I don't understand how any health-care professional has moved so far away from the fundamentals of public health and of doing no harm that they would think that basically incarcerating a child in a room for 14 days is in any way justified."
"This is shocking, especially when you consider this is being proposed for children who are not in any way sick."
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