As kids return to school, lunch becomes the most complicated meal of the day

“It’s a big concern because it’s the only time (the kids) are going to be maskless and the Omicron variant is highly contagious. But there just seems to be no focus at all on addressing safety at lunch.”

Across the province, most of Ontario’s two million students are returning to in-person classes this week for the first time since Dec. 17. Due to heavy snowfall, most GTA schools are finally opening Wednesday. Premier Doug Ford and Dr. Kieran Moore, the chief medical officer of health, had said the move to online school for two weeks was to allow for greater safety measures as the Omicron variant surged, including more HEPA filters, rapid tests, N95 masks for staff and more vaccine doses for teachers and students.

Many parents remain concerned about having their children return to class, and safety during lunch is one of their biggest worries.

According to Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatrician and University of Toronto professor, lunchtime is the riskiest period of the school day for COVID-19 transmission because of the removal of masks, even if it is partial or brief.

Banerji said bringing kids home for lunch if possible is “not a bad idea.”

“The fact is there’s lots of Omicron out there and having a whole bunch of kids in one space without the mask on potentially could lead to transfer because it is so infectious,” Banerji said.

In Petsinis’s view, “It is too much of a burden on parents to be figuring out how to keep their kids safe at lunch,” Petsinis said. As for the idea of constantly raising and lowering masks, the World Health Organization has recommended that people avoid touching their masks to avoid contamination, and only touching them after hands have been cleaned.

For now, Petsinis has asked her daughter, who has received both vaccine doses, to go outside if she needs to eat but has not ruled out making the trip to bring her lunch.

“I think it’s challenging unless you have kids go home for lunch,” Banerji said. She added that “if that’s possible, then it’s probably better than having a whole bunch of kids in one space.

“HEPA filters can help, opening windows can help,” she said. “But the most important thing to reduce transmission in schools is to get kids vaccinated.”

Similar to Petsinis, parents like Shameela Shakeel have criticized the approach and lack of guidance from school boards on how to best protect their kids during the Omicron surge.

“A lot of the problem solving has fallen on the parents and educators and it’s frustrating,” Shakeel said.

TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said there was not much detail to provide on lunch policies. “Lunches may look different depending on the unique circumstances at each school. Physical distancing will be maximized and students will eat at different times, where possible.”

The Toronto Catholic District School Board said it encouraged physical distancing within cohorts and classrooms. In elementary schools, students are asked to eat lunches in the classroom, while secondary schools have larger spaces for the lunch periods.

Shakeel has two teen sons in a high school under the York Region District School Board, aged 16 and 14, who she has instructed to go outside for lunch and not to eat without a mask indoors. “For high school we just got told they would get 75 minutes’ lunch … but there was no new plan,” Shakeel said.

But she is most concerned about her 11-year-old daughter in Grade 6 because the elementary school students are expected to eat in their classrooms. Because of this and the Omicron variant, Shakeel has decided to have her daughter continue with virtual learning until Family Day rather than go back.

“In elementary you can’t just go outside,” Shakeel said. “They eat for 20 minutes and there’s very little supervision … Especially because they’re in a portable, there isn’t guaranteed supervision in there … And the ventilation in the portable is not great. It does not have a HEPA filter.”

Still, for other parents, the concern is minimal.

“I’m pretty certain we’re all going to be exposed to it in the very near future but that’s why we all got vaccinated,” said Mirit Eliraz, who has a 15-year-old daughter in high school in York Region.

In Ontario 50 per cent of children five to 11 have at least one shot; seven per cent have two shots. For the 12-17 group about 83 per cent have two shots.

“I think we have reasonable safety measures in place,” Eliraz said, “but we’re dealing with a contagious virus so I don’t think any additional measures will keep it out. It’s just a fact of life, it’s everywhere.”