Stephen Price: As British Columbia faces an Omicron tsunami, it’s time to get educators ventilators

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It’s time to update our approach to masks in BC schools.

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If we imagine that the current layers of protection follow the model of Swiss cheese, the Omicron strain turns out to be a very hungry mouse. Although the province has done a good job of expanding vaccinations, we still need more layers between us and Omicron. Switching from masks to respirators like N95s and KN95s for school staff offers a pragmatic way to give us some space between us and school closures.

The province could add that layer quickly by offering every K-12 worker a $100 mask allowance so they can purchase the highest quality, best-fitting respirators currently available, or by offering respiratory masks to workers in schools.

As Omicron reports, Dr. Bonnie Henry predicts that up to a third of staff could be away from their workplace at any time due to COVID. Teachers spent four days last week planning for a functional shutdown – the possibility of moving a school online because too many staff are away.

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But what is the impact of a closure? How should we understand the cost-benefit equation the government makes when choosing what is worth and what is not worth as we fight COVID?

The most obvious cost is medical. We know that some of those who contract COVID – especially the most vulnerable – face significant short- and long-term consequences. Teachers and their families, like all frontline workers unable to work from home, have faced heightened risks of COVID and long COVID throughout the pandemic. While Omicron will be mild for the most part, every day we go to work we play the COVID lottery. Each time a teacher or family member hits the macabre jackpot and gets a long debilitating COVID, their life is changed forever. The costs to society could run into the millions in terms of disability and medical support.

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But that’s not the only cost. A week-long functional closure has a huge impact on parents’ ability to work, on students’ ability to learn, and takes away the most important resource for some of our most vulnerable students. Schools are essential. That’s why teachers in British Columbia have overwhelmingly supported keeping schools open for the most part while providing options for those whose circumstances mean staying home is the wisest choice.

What if we had a protective layer that could help reduce the number of functional closures? A $100 mask upgrade benefit for education workers in BC (including teachers, support staff and administration) would be around $10 million. How much does it cost in context? That’s 0.14% of the $7.1 billion education budget.

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Health Minister Adrian Dix said in CBC’s January 5 advance edition that we “must keep workplaces as safe as possible for all workers.” Despite this, he says N95 masks do not add significantly to safety.

Minister Dix gave no response to why Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Teresa Tam, disagreed when she told Canadians that respirators like N95 were the best option for COVID protection.

Minister Dix is ​​right in some respects: respirators are not a silver bullet. They are a prudent insurance policy. They are another slice of Swiss cheese. N95 respirators are simpler, faster and cheaper than retrofitting schools with Merv-8 air filters to Merv-13. They’re much less disruptive than keeping half the class home every day. They are the next pragmatic step we can take.

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So how do you get there? We need the help of school counselors, parents, and especially PACs, teachers, and anyone who cares about education to make their voices heard. Teachers only got permission to ask students to wear masks because of such a push; it’s time for another one.

In a system where so many reasonable requests made by K-12 workers are ignored, let’s show every educator that improving their safety is worth $100. Let’s follow Dr. Tam and the growing chorus of experts who suggest it’s time to give ventilators to educators.

Stephen Price is a public elementary school teacher and vice-president of the West Vancouver Teachers’ Association. He was an educational columnist on CKNW from 2018 to 2021.