The Medical Officer of Health for Windsor-Essex supports kids returning to in-person learning.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning drive, Dr. Wajid Ahmed says given the harms that are associated with kids not being in school, provincial officials need to look at if the risk be balanced.
"Can we make sure that we can keep our children safe as well as we can give them the learning environment they need, especially for when they finish the year."
Dr. Ahmed says he would support both a regional approach to schools re-opening as well as a full provincial plan.
"Concerns have been raised about their mental well-being, about the social connectedness and also the educational aspect of learning online versus in-person," he says. "So there are a number of concerns, obviously for our region's perspective, I would be comfortable."
When it comes to the vaccine, Dr. Ahmed says every teacher in Windsor-Essex who wants a vaccine has had an opportunity to receive a first dose.
"We have vaccinated all the school teachers who wanted a vaccine, we opened that up a long time a go," says Ahmed. "And then we have our 12+ students, we have already started to vaccinate and our vaccination rate is pretty high overall. In the region it,s close to 68 per cent, so we've been doing pretty good."
The Council of Ontario Medical Officers of Health, which Dr. Ahmed is part of, has sent a letter to the province for what it calls "full and unequivocal support for the re-opening of schools."
The letter goes on to say that, "Evidence-based data on the importance and safety of school openings notes the harms of prolonged school closures and recommends that daily in-person classrooms should be the last to close and the first to open."
Speaking on Friday morning, Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he'll only make a decision whether to reopen schools for the final month of the academic year after he hears from numerous experts.