Parents' group wants more COVID protections in B.C. classrooms ahead of new school year

As another school year approaches, a group of parents and health-care professionals are asking for more health protections in classrooms ahead of the respiratory illness season.

Protect Our Province is asking the provincial government to ensure better air ventilation in classrooms, along with a reinstated mask mandate and earlier vaccinations for families and children.

In an interview with CBC's The Early Edition, group member and Vancouver-based elementary school teacher Jennifer Heighton said installing HEPA filters in classrooms to help with air circulation should be a priority for B.C.'s education ministry.

"Air quality is a really important measure that needs to happen," Heighton said. "The new normal is that indoor spaces need to be kept up with better air quality."

Heighton referenced new guidelines from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), which set out minimum standards that the organization says can reduce the risk of airborne disease transmission.

"[ASHRAE has released a] new standard called 241 that outlines that schools and other public buildings need to be upgraded and have their air quality improved, and that can include things like putting in portable HEPA air purifiers to make sure the air is clean," Heighton said.

Luc Latulippe, who has a granddaughter starting grade one in September,  told CBC's The Early Edition that schools in Toronto have outfitted all their classrooms with HEPA filters — and he doesn't see why B.C. can't do the same.

"Why not take the additional measure? Why not use that precautionary principle that is a guiding principle of public health, and apply it to some of our most vulnerable, which are children who depend on the adults in the room to look after them?" Latulippe said.

Protect Our Province wants the provincial government to reinstate mask mandates in schools and to provide influenza vaccination and COVID-19 boosters to the public earlier than last year — especially in light of a new subvariant of the Omicron strain, known as EG.5.

While experts say EG.5 appears to be more infectious and able to sneak past our immune defences, it doesn't seem to cause more severe illness. 

"It's something to certainly keep a close eye on, but I'm not significantly worried about it at this point," Dr. Syra Madad, an epidemiologist at the Harvard Belfer Center, told CBC News earlier this week.

Health officials prepare for respiratory season

In an interview Wednesday with The Early Edition, B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said health officials are preparing for the respiratory illness season — and possible illness from COVID, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

An updated COVID vaccination available to Canadians soon is designed to target all sub-lineages of the Omicron variant. Henry said immunization would be particularly effective for older people in B.C. to avoid severe illness if they develop COVID.

However, she said the pandemic is no longer an "urgent" situation in the province.

"[When] we look at all of the data that we're watching, hospitalizations and wastewater data, the whole genome sequencing — we're not in the same place that we were even a year ago. And that's because we've had such a high level of immunity."

"We're emerging from this pandemic. So this fall is also going to be important. We know that influenza is going to come back. We know that RSV is going to come back, and we know what we can do to try and protect ourselves, those around us and keep our health system going as well. So that's what we'll be focusing on as we go into the fall. This updated vaccine is your best protection from what we see circulating now from COVID."