Uncertainty over vaccine rate affects reopening

The plan to reopen schools in Ontario for in-person learning is based on the expectation that most of the students and staff will be fully vaccinated against COVID -19 by September.

But the province, school boards and five unions representing teachers and education workers say they don't know what the vaccination rate is among staff as they don't keep track of the data.

Guidelines for the resumption of classes in September are expected soon from the Ministry of Education, but experts say plans based on immunization rates will be hard to develop without a full picture of vaccination coverage in schools.

Barry Pakes, a University of Toronto professor in public health, said the lack of data makes it difficult to assess which restrictions can be lifted or if vaccination policies should be considered.

“I'm not worried about whether schools are going to be safe or not,” he said. “What I am worried about is whether they can be normal in the sense that we can let down some of our public health measures, if we know those schools are vaccinated enough.”

Ontario's COVax system has partial data on the number of education workers who have received vaccines if they signed up under the priority-group category. But a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health acknowledged the tally doesn't include workers who signed up under different eligibility criteria.

Vaccine access for education workers was a priority issue for unions this spring, as the government considered again shuttering schools for in-person learning.

Now partway through the summer, unions representing teachers in Ontario elementary, secondary, Catholic and French schools told The Canadian Press they don't have an overall sense of their members' vaccination status.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents a variety of education workers, said it doesn't have current data on COVID-19 vaccination rates. But the president of CUPE's Ontario School Board Council of Unions said it has shared a provincial survey on vaccination with its members, with results still pending.

“Overall, we'd like to see the removal of all barriers to ensure vaccination for everyone in schools,” Laura Walton said in a statement.

The president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation said the union is encouraging members to be vaccinated, but doesn't have a firm figure.

“We're considering that the numbers of our (vaccinated) members are hopefully similar to what the numbers are in the province,” Karen Littlewood said in an interview. “It would be great if we had over 50 per cent of our members with their second shot, but we don't really have any means to verify that.”