Ontarians should urgently lobby for schools to be online. Covid 19 stats are dangerously spiking

This is an urgent call to lobby the Ontario Government to back off their plan to have schools go back Wed Jan 5th. 

There was evidence in 2020 and 2021 that it was better to keep classes in person. Back then:

  * Kids were less prone to earlier variants

  * Simple masks seemed to work well

  * Cases seemed not to be transmitted in schools very much

  * Interaction in schools could be controlled

  * Testing was working

  * We had vaccination levels in Fall 2021 that were high and vaccines seemed to be stopping transmission

But things are different with the current wave of Omicron. Even though there is evidence Omicron is milder, there is now much better evidence that Ontario classes should be online for a few weeks, especially for grades where kids can stay alone at home (Grade 7 and up)

15 Reasons why Ontario kids should should go online in January 2022, at least for a couple of weeks:

1.   Kids seem to be as prone to current variants as adults
2.   Transmissibility of Omicron is vastly higher
3.   N95 masks are needed, and kids don't have them, and they are not in stores
4.   Testing is not working since the system is overwhelmed (both lateral-flow/rapid-response and PCR)
5.   Lateral-flow tests seem to be working less well on Omicron
6.   So many people have symptoms that absences in schools will be super-high if families obey the isolation rules, such that obedient kids/families will miss important material and/or teachers will have to repeat it
7.   Kids who hide symptoms so as not not miss material and hence don't isolate will just keep Omicron going.
8.   Rt rates in Ontario are crazy high (mostly in 1.5 to 1.8 range; see below)
9.   Case rates per 100K are crazy high; mostly over 400 (here in Ottawa 1508 today, which is vastly above the highest ever before in this pandemic, and that is even with inadequate testing!)
10.   Hospitalizations are just starting to spike ... and this is a key issue; we have to wait it out to see this number stays down as high hospitalization will result in deaths.
11.   Kingston, which spiked 2 weeks ahead of other Ontario health units is one of the few places with declining cases, likely in part because so many people had it, and because Queens students are home. Maybe, just maybe, numbers elsewhere will come down in 2 weeks; let's be prudent and wait until then
12.   The Wastewater signal is spiking (at least in Ottawa, see below)
13.   And we haven't yet seen the normal spike that is likely to happen after irresponsible people party at New Years.
14. Although vaccinated people are much less likely to end up in hospital, they still are getting symptoms and still have to isolate, causing havoc with education
15. We know how to do online education now; it is far inferior to in-person, but with luck this would only be for a couple of weeks.

Latest startling data from Ottawa as reported by CBC (note that their chart of cases has the maximum X-axis value of 800, so the 1700 is off the chart! https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/covid19-ottawa-cases-december-31-1.6301311

Latest wastewater data for Ottawa: https://613covid.ca/wastewater/

Epidemiological summary for Ontario health units from Ryan Imgrund: https://www.imgrund.ca/ontario-phu

We need to wait it out. It is irresponsible to have kids go back in person in the coming days. We need to see Rt go back to the range close to 1 (maybe 1.05), and cases per 100K down to maybe 40, and the testing system to recover its capacity to test everybody who has symptoms, so we can get an accurate picture of what is going on. 

Whether or not schools are 'safe places' now is irrelevant, even though highly doubtful. The symptomatic people and contacts all isolating (teachers and kids) will nonetheless render in-person education pointless, and actually make online education better educationally.