If you are wondering why some ON parents are expressing some negative reactions to today’s CMOH announcement, let me try to break this down for you. #onpoli

For months parents waited & worried about the return to school plan. It was bad.

What certainty was offered (not smaller class sizes or use of community space for distancing) wasn’t confidence inspiring. And the goal posts kept moving. But parents sucked it up and made the best choices we could for our kids.

When school started we all agreed to daily screening before sending a child to school. For weeks, the screening tool has said if your kid has a runny nose, frankly if your kid has a nose, they must be tested or you isolate as a family for 14 days.

The schools enforced it, as expected. Here’s the flowchart from @ottawahealth used by @ocdsb schools if/when a child is sent home or screened as symptomatic

But last week at least 1 local CMOH said “no, no! You don’t need to test! Just fill out this parental attestation if you know it’s allergies/a cold/nerves/exzema/fakery or any other reason your child might get a rash/runny nose/headache/tummy ache/cough/fall down....”

So now this is what the daily screening tool looks like after today’s provincial CMOH presser repeating “trust your parental medical judgement” narrative

But, I can’t help but see this in the context of recent data showing school-age kids are now among most tested (if not most tested) in the province and media reports of a provincial memo ordering local authorities to reduce testing because of lab backlogs.

The about face, in a confirmed second wave, is another move that erodes parents’ trust. At a time when we want to know our governments and officials share our gut response to protect our kids, we keep getting signals that we are on our own.

After getting up at dawn to stand in line for a test for our child, we are being told that was a dumb thing to do, that we just misunderstood the experts, and should’ve just exercised common sense. All the while we were in fact following the clear rules.

And at some personal and family cost.

So yeah, this isn’t totally “welcome” news.