Ford and Lecce keeping parents in the dark with lack of COVID-19 reporting at schools

January 12, 2022

TORONTO — Mike Schreiner made the following statement in response to Minister Lecce’s press conference this afternoon:

“Withholding critical COVID-19 information is not empowerment. It’s keeping parents in the dark.

The fact that the government will wait until 30% of students and staff are absent before notifying parents about an outbreak in their child’s classroom is ridiculous.

Greens want students back in class learning. And public health experts are clear that more information and transparency — not less — is necessary to protect children and maintain public confidence that schools are safe.

That’s why I’ve called on the Ford government to implement a province-wide database on safe school statistics.

The database should be broken down by individual schools, be up-to-date and highlight key safety information, including:

• Case and outbreak numbers
• Number of KN95 and N95 masks available to students and educators
• Statistics on air quality, including number of HEPA filters and quality of ventilation and airflow
• Anonymous vaccination rates of educators and students (including number of doses)
• Number of rapid and PCR test kits available
• Class sizes
• Absenteeism statistics

I’m relieved to see the Minister finally step up to the mic after governing by media leaks for the past two weeks.

We know what can be done to make schools safer. We can mandate vaccines for educators and add COVID-19 to the existing list of required vaccines. We can improve air quality and make testing more accessible and regular.

We need to do everything possible to ensure kids are learning in safe and healthy environments and that schools don’t close again.”

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