Back to School with No Protections
(First published March 13, 2022)
Tomorrow NB kids go back to schools without any Covid protections. What is transmission like in schools? Are schools safe?
During the month prior to March break, a minimum of 37% of reported NB cases in people under 50 (POCT) occurred in NB schools.
For the period of February 4 through March 4, EECD reported 10,140 POCT (rapid test) cases in NB schools. During the same period, GNB reported 17,095 POCT cases in New Brunswick. Parents were instructed to report their Covid positive kids to the school and then GNB.
If we assume that all EECD POCT cases were also reported to GNB, that would mean that during this period, school cases made up 10,140/17,095 or 59% of all POCT cases in the province. This number is staggering, but we know not all school cases were reported to GNB.
We know this because there were days when EECD reported POCT cases outnumbered GNB reported POCT cases. We can never be certain how many school cases were included in the GNB totals.
For the sake of determining the minimum percent of NB POCT cases that were in schools, it is most conservative to assume none of the EECD reported POCT cases were included in the GNB reported POCT cases. While this is unlikely, it will tell us the lowest possible percentage.
If we assume that none of the EECD POCT cases were also reported to GNB, that would mean that during this period, school cases made up 10,140/(10,140+17,095) or 37% of all POCT cases in the province.
Again, this is not the true number, but the true number cannot be less.
Any EECD cases that were also reported to GNB make this 37% share increase slightly. A small portion of kids may have been confirmed by PCR tests. This would make this 37% share decrease slightly.
A safe assumption here is that PCR tested kids (causing a decrease in the percentage), and kids who were also reported to GNB (causing an increase in the percentage) balance out to some degree. It's likely more kids were double reported than were PCR tested. Data coming from GNB and EECD has been spotty at best.
Case in point, during this period, the daily delta of new school cases reported by EECD never equaled the total of district cases reported by EECD on the same day (except once). No explanation or clarification has ever been given for these errors.
So...
We can conclude, in the month prior to March break, schools were responsible for a minimum of 37% of NB transmissions in people under 50. That was with protections in place. This high transmission area is where we are sending our kids tomorrow…
…without any protections.
If this concerns you, you are not alone. Covid is not the flu. Covid is an airborne vascular disease affecting the brain, heart, lungs, kidneys and other organs. Covid can lead to long term illness, disability and death. Kids can bring it home to their families.
And there is no evidence of kids masking contributing to delayed development.
Masking is one of the easiest, cheapest and most effective methods to reduce transmission in our schools. If you are concerned, please write to your MLA asking them to reinstate mask mandates in schools. Request a response.
Find your MLA here.
Finally, please consider signing and sharing the POP NB petition to keep masks in NB schools.
You are not alone.