TORONTO -- As we creep closer to the reopening of schools across the country, experts are pointing out that ventilation within schools is an under-discussed issue in a COVID-19 world.
In order to try to ensure the safety of students, teachers and staff, many school boards are minimizing class sizes and staggering when cohorts take lessons in order to keep students within a smaller bubble. Depending on the age of students and the region, the wearing of cloth masks is also either required or recommended.
But these measures alone fail to address the major infrastructure problem that plagues many schools still: ventilation.
Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist, told 麻豆影视 Channel that there is no magic number for how big class sizes should be, because it depends on the density and airspace within individual classrooms.
鈥淚 worry a lot that all of the discussion and focus on class size leaves us ignoring something that is actually more important for safety, and that鈥檚 air quality,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 heard enough about classroom-by-classroom inspections to see if the air quality and ventilation is adequate. You can shrink a class, you can take kids out of the room, but if you don鈥檛 ventilate the room, the ones who remain are still in danger.
鈥淪ome classrooms don鈥檛 even have windows in Ontario. So that鈥檚 an issue."
He added that he鈥檚 personally walked by older schools where it鈥檚 clear that 鈥渨indows have been painted shut for years, maybe decades.鈥
According to Dr. Matthew Oughton, an infectious disease specialist, this issue with the actual buildings themselves is one we鈥檝e seen before, with many long-term care facilities.
鈥淥ften, these buildings are older, have inadequate facilities for allowing proper physical distancing, often they have inadequate facilities for proper ventilation,鈥 he told 麻豆影视 Channel. 鈥淭here鈥檚 many school buildings where you can鈥檛 even open windows, which is a pretty simple way to improve the ventilation, so these are all things that are going to be working against us.鈥
And school buildings don鈥檛 have to be extremely old to be at risk of having poor ventilation.
Mohamed Ouf, a professor in Concordia University鈥檚 Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, told 麻豆影视 Montreal that buildings built in the 1980s or even the early 1990s could still not meet the ventilation requirements of today, even without taking COVID-19 into account.
In Quebec alone, more than half of the schools were officially classed as being in 鈥減oor condition鈥 when it comes to infrastructure, according to the most recent 10-year government report.
Our understanding of the way COVID-19 spreads is still not perfect. After being urged by more than 200 scientists to add airborne transmission to their list of ways the virus can be spread, the World Health Organization in July indicating that the scientific community was studying the possibility.
鈥淪hort-range aerosol transmission, particularly in specific indoor locations, such as crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time with infected persons cannot be ruled out,鈥 the brief stated.
Droplets produced when an infected person speaks or coughs is the main way that the virus spreads, scientists believe, but the evidence that asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic spread also occurs has led scientists to consider airborne transmission more closely. This is when virus-carrying microdroplets stay suspended in the air for a longer period of time after heavier droplets have fallen to the ground.
How big a role airborne transmission might play in the spread of COVID-19 is still not clear, but if it is a threat, ventilation and air flow within an indoor space is crucial to look at.
Furness said to be on the safe side, school boards should think about implementing short-term ventilation solutions if they have inadequate ventilation.
鈥淲e need portable air scrubbers in classrooms right away,鈥 he said. 鈥淏ecause that can be done quickly and easily. Is it ideal? No. But one air scrubber in a classroom might actually have a much bigger impact than taking three or four kids out.鈥
He added that as children return to school, their families should take the extra step of limiting their own social interactions in order to keep their bubble as small as possible now their child will be interacting with more people in their class.
鈥淲e need those smaller bubbles,鈥 he said.
Although he believes schools need to be doing more on the ventilation angle, he says that for the time being, his children will be heading back to school in September.
鈥淚鈥檓 doing that comfortably because I believe that is safe now,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hat could change, but for now, I think that is a safe, good thing to do, especially for kids鈥 development and mental health.鈥
With files from 麻豆影视 Montreal鈥檚 Andrew Brennan and Selena Ross
