OTTAWA — The Public Health Agency of Canada won’t be following in the footsteps of U.S. health officials and changing the recommended distance between students in classrooms until potentially “early summer 2021,” when the agency expects to update its COVID-19 guidance for kindergarten to Grade 12 based on the latest transmission and epidemiology data.
PHAC told CTVNews.ca that while it continues to communicate with international partners, “the epidemiology of COVID-19 is different in each jurisdiction” and for that reason, narrowing the distance between students wearing masks from at least six feet to at least three feet, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended last Friday, won’t be applied to Canada at this time.
The CDC said the new guidance was based on data from schools in Utah, Missouri and Florida that suggests transmission of COVID-19 in schools is relatively low when precautions such as mask-wearing are employed, including in cases where students do not maintain six feet of distance.
“I want to emphasize that today’s recommendations are specific to students in classrooms with universal mask wearing. These updates provide the evidence-based roadmap to help schools reopen safely, and remain open, for in-person instruction,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky tweeted on Friday following the announcement.
PHAC currently advises that, when possible, students remain at least two metres apart while masked. Some individual provinces have taken their own approach, including B.C., where the province’s health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said in September that one metre of distance was acceptable in controlled environments.
“Given the circulation of variants of concern across Canada, some of which are more transmissible, it is important individuals continue to practise physical distancing along with multiple other personal preventive practices in a layered approach,” reads the statement from PHAC.
With a file from Reuters
