Ontario’s doctors urge everyone to get vaccinated to help make back-to-school safe

“It’s so important that we continue to remain vigilant and continue to follow the public health measures we have all become so familiar with. Masking indoors, regular hand washing and good ventilation are some of the ways that we can avoid the spread of infection in schools and other indoor settings.

“We want to make sure our kids can stay in school with their friends, learning and growing. It’s essential, not only just for their education, but also for their mental health and social development. We don’t want to have to go back to more restrictions or another lockdown.

“I believe we can do this. This is the last mile that last kilometre, and the single most important thing we can do as a society to curve the pandemic is to ensure that we all get vaccinated.”

“It goes without saying that vaccination is the cornerstone to essentially ending the acute phase of the pandemic in our community, because, ultimately, the virus will cease to be novel when enough people have been exposed, either through an immunization or through infection, at which point, and a novel coronavirus is no longer novel to our population.

“But that really speaks to the second part because we do know as we implement these last mile strategies that there are still many individuals who have not yet had the opportunity to be vaccinated, who may have very valid questions or concerns that deserve to be listened to and deserve to be treated with empathy and respect.

“And so, at this point, it is also about trying to reduce our contacts as well as we can, to avoid a large-scale lockdown into ensure that businesses can stay open and, more importantly that the children that are returning to school today can remain in in person learning with confidence.”

“I think that what we’re seeing now, is a lot of still hesitancy about getting the vaccine into the arms of pregnant women. This is a constantly evolving group, it gets bigger everyday. There are 147,000 babies born in Ontario every year, so it really is 147,000 women that are at risk, for the very severe consequences of the COVID virus.

“We all are very aware of what happened in the spring. The large teaching facilities in downtown Toronto, Mount Sinai, their entire ICU was filled with pregnant women over 30 at one point. And the consequences of getting a COVID infection during pregnancy are magnified about five times what it would be when you’re not pregnant.”