Hamilton public health determining schools’ rates of vaccination

Hamilton public health will soon have school-by-school COVID-19 vaccination rates.

But it’s unclear whether the data will be publicly available.

In a letter to parents at public and Catholic boards, Hamilton’s associate medical officer of health, Dr. Ninh Tran, said “local public health units will be reviewing and assessing students’ COVID-19 vaccination information together with student enrolment information in their possession to support case, contact and outbreak management in schools.”

“COVID-19 immunization for students is not mandatory,” he said. “However, understanding the student immunization status and coverage within classes and schools will better enable public health units to respond if there is an outbreak.”

The parent letters follow a provincial announcement on Tuesday to roll out rapid testing for high-risk schools. Hamilton hasn’t yet determined how it would use the tests.

In an email to the Hamilton Spectator, spokesperson James Berry said public health’s pursuit of school-based information and potential, targeted use of rapid testing “are not necessarily mutually exclusive.”

Vaccine information will be assessed for all students eligible at public and private schools in Hamilton. Currently, the vaccine is available for anyone born in 2009 or earlier.

In an email to the Spectator, Hamilton’s medical officer of health, Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, said they have been “very encouraged” by the uptake among young people.

As of Thursday, 84 per cent of those ages12 to17 had received a first dose of the vaccine, and nearly 75 were fully vaccinated.

Berry said conversations with the province and school boards are “actively ongoing” and “the process of collection and analysis is underway.”

In August, Hamilton public health said it was seeking permission from the province to link data sets that would reveal vaccination rates among students after Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health began to report publicly a school-byschool breakdown.

Berry said Friday all public health units in the province have now been directed to collect this information.

Since the start of the school year, there have been 21 outbreaks at public and Catholic schools in the city. The most recent outbreak was declared at Huntington Park Elementary School on the east Mountain, where there are two student cases.