B.C. Green Party leader pushing for mandatory masks in all classrooms

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) — B.C.’s Green Party leader is demanding stronger COVID safety measures for all students heading back into classrooms this fall.

Sonia Furstenau says calls educators and students have been making for schools to mandate masks have been heard and have her support.

Furstenau tells NEWS 1130 she wants to see the province take a proactive approach to protect young people from COVID-19 before it’s too late.

She explains plans in place for schools were released too early, when numbers were decreasing and there were lower rates of COVID transmission. With the concerning Delta variant significantly increasing daily case counts, Furstenau says those too young to be vaccinated are among the most vulnerable.

“Our largest unvaccinated population in British Columbia is children under 12. To send them back into school with no protective measures, seems to me at this point, really an irresponsible choice for this government to be making.”

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Earlier this month, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said there had been cases of the Delta variant found in children under the age of 12. While she did not provide any statistics, she maintained there haven’t been “very many.”

“What we are not seeing is increased rates of transmission in young children and children under 12 in particular. We’ve not seen very many cases in that age group,” she said.

Furstenau says because children are not eligible for vaccines — and may not be before December — it’s imperative that schools take “partial measures” such as mandating masks, ensuring good ventilation, air filtration, “and acknowledging that COVID is airborne.” She also encourages rapid testing in schools.

“What I want to see from this government is not yet another round of ‘wait and see,’ as we had with the second wave, the third wave, with the forest fires, with the heat dome. This government is really adopting a reactive ‘wait and see approach.’ In this case, for children, let’s be proactive, and take the steps and put a plan together that will protect those children.”

"This government is really adopting a reactive, wait and see approach… let's be proactive… and put a plan together that will protect those children."@SoniaFurstenau re: demands for mask mandates in all #BC schools to stop the spread of #COVID19 this fall.#bced @NEWS1130

— Marcella Bernardo (@MBernardoNews) August 10, 2021

Furstenau’s is also speaking out in favour of vaccine passports, something Quebec has already announced.

Furstenau says she’s hearing from parents and educators demanding an updated return to school plan before most classes resume on Sept. 7.

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For the time being, the universities and colleges have the authority to mandate masks and require vaccinations, but Furstenau says the province should not be leaving it up to them.

“As much as we all wish that COVID-19 was behind us, it is not. We need to see those public health measures proactively so that we can have a hope of getting to a place where we aren’t seeing more and more people suffering from long COVID, more and more serious illness, hospitals being overwhelmed again. These are outcomes that we can avoid with effective public health measures, and I’d like to see those happen,” she says.

“I think it’s important for government to really lean into its role in a situation like this.”

If nothing else, Furstenau says, Dr. Henry and the provincial health minister, should give school administrators the power to decide what protective measures are needed because plans in place as of June are already outdated.

Through the pandemic, several studies, reports and experts have reported young people have been struggling for the past 18 months.

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To help ease stress and support students’ well-being, Furstenau suggests implementing COVID-19 measures will help ease anxieties for students and their parents.

“Something I’m seeing a lot of parents [say] in their correspondence to me is they feel abandoned. That sense of abandonment by the government right now is exacerbating already high levels of anxiety,” she explains.

“I think that it’s really important to recognize the interconnection between these aspects that people are experiencing right now. It’s very, very hard for a parent of a child who cannot get vaccinated to be told, ‘No, we’re not going to take measures to protect your child.’ I think that’s too much to ask of parents after a year and a half.”