Ontario students who were sent home due to a runny nose or a sore throat will no longer have to get tested or isolate for 14 days before returning to school, as the Ford government changed the policy to allow them to return to school 48 hours ago.
This comes after many parents had to wait up to eight hours in line to get their child tested, causing major testing backlogs, because their child had a symptom which is not even included as a COVID-19 symptom on Health Canada’s list.
Any student showing one of the four most common COVID-19 symptoms, fever, cough, loss of taste or smell, and shortness of breath. will still have to either get a negative test result or self isolate for 14 days before they can return to school or daycare.
Students who show only one of the other symptoms on Ontario’s screening questionnaire will be sent home but will be allowed to return after 24 hours, as long as their symptoms improve, reports CP24.
The province entirely removed abdominal pain and pink eye from its symptom from its list of symptoms.
Ontario’s Associate Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe told the public On Thursday that “We are changing the policy and clarifying that schools and daycares should not be requiring a negative COVID test (if children have just one symptom); in fact they shouldn’t even be requiring a doctor’s note.”
“The parent knows the child the best so if the parent has consulted the provider and the child is feeling better they should be able to go back to school.”
Dr. Yaffe also explained that Ontario didn’t follow suit earlier, because 17 percent of children who test positive for COVID-19 have a runny nose. She added “We felt that we had to include runny nose; however we know that runny nose is a very common symptom and in the vast, vast majority of cases it is not COVID-19.” “There are all sorts of other causes. There are other viruses circulating in the community or the kid might have just been outside and got a runny nose. It is still there (on the list) but what we want to look at really is whether it is a significant symptom and whether they have other symptoms as well. If they only have the runny nose and they go home and it gets better and they have no other symptoms then they can go back to school the next day.”
Under the new screening guidance, students who show more than one of the less common symptoms will still have to get tested for COVID-19 or self isolate for 14 days before returning to school.
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