Is poor ventilation in Ontario schools responsible for the over 1,000 positive cases of COVID-19?

BY PAUL JUNOR

The opening of schools across the province has led to over 1,000 positive cases of COVID-19 in schools across Ontario. This increasing number of lab confirmed cases has led many to look at the ventilation systems in schools. Concerns about the quality of ventilation systems prompted the Minister of Education, Stephen Leece to release $500 million in funding to deal with this. The four teachers’ unions which represent over 190,000 teachers and education workers have repeatedly alerted the Ministry of Education and Labour about poor ventilation in schools.

In a report by CBC News on August 16th, 2020 titled, “Neglected, school ventilation systems worry parents, experts during COVID-19 pandemic,” it mentioned two specific ways that the chances of infection could be reduced:

1. Boosting natural ventilation, such as opening windows and doors to introduce more outdoor air and dilute contaminants, including viruses, indoors.

2. Increasing outdoor air intake through building ventilation systems

While a lot of the focus has been on reducing class sizes, the issue of ventilation has become a priority. Dr. Colin Furness told CTV News on Sunday, August 30th, “I worry a lot that all of the discussion and focus on class sizes leaves us ignoring something that is actually more important for safety, and that’s air quality. I haven’t heard enough about classroom-by classroom inspections to see the air quality and ventilation is adequate. You can shrink a class, you can take kids out of the room, but if you don’t ventilate the room, the ones who are there are still in danger.”

It is truly troubling to know that “Some classrooms don’t even have windows in Ontario. So that’s an issue” and in others, “Windows have been painted shut for years, maybe decades,” he observes.

Dr. Matthew Oughton, infectious disease specialist reported that, “Often these buildings are older, have inadequate facilities for allowing proper physical distancing, and often they have inadequate facilities for proper ventilation.”

It is unfortunate that it took the pandemic to alert government officials about the sad state of affairs. Jeffrey Siegal, (Professor of civil engineering at University of Toronto) told CTV News that, “We have systematically neglected our heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems in many of our buildings-maybe especially in our schools – for a long time, and now all of a sudden we want to use them to help protect us from this pandemic.”

In the Toronto District School Board, there are about 6,000 classrooms without proper ventilation as reported by 680 News on October 16th, 2020. Danby, the Canadian appliance manufacturer, has donated 500 air purifiers to 37 schools that are lacking mechanical ventilation, and will be obtaining the lower style air purifiers.