With rising test positivity in school-aged kids I thought it was important to highlight an observation from our Sept 2020 data collection led by @GBrankston and with support from @EricMerkley and @PeejLoewen. Some observations about Ontario specific kid contact patterns. /1

40% of ON households with kids <18 years of age have kids who are engaging in in-person extracurricular activities outside of school on average, 1-2 times per week.

A preliminary look at our ON data indicate that kids aged 4-12 have on average, 18.3 (10.1 – 26.6) extracurricular contacts per week. Kids aged 13-18 have on average, 10.0 (3.93 – 16.1) extracurricular contacts per week.

If we take these contacts + 50-100 contacts in poorly defined school “cohorts” + bus “cohort” contacts + before and after school contacts we can imagine how the magnitude of contacts and mixing might be a real problem that could contribute to community transmission.

Ottawa is reporting outbreaks associated with hockey and now dance studios in regions with high levels of community transmission have successfully managed to lobby their way into re-opening. We need to really watch this closely.

I know that these activities are important for kids. However, if we make decisions to refocus on working to fight this pandemic smarter rather than in our current disjointed and poorly communicated way there is likely a way forward on this. We just need to be smarter about it.