On the first full day of school for many Vancouver Island students, the wildfire smoke is so thick you can barely see across playing fields in Saanich — raising questions about whether kids should be staying home.
“I’m ultimately not concerned,” a Victoria parent told CHEK News. “I think the kids are excited to be back in school and that’s the main thing.”
But with the air quality so poor, both the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association and the Nanaimo District Teachers’ Association are calling on school districts to suspend classes.
The precautions being taken to reduce smoke exposure — keeping windows and doors closed and children inside for recess and lunch — go against COVID-19 protocols.
“Students will be in classrooms with no physical distancing requirements, no outdoor learning, no open windows to compensate for HVAC systems with low-rated MERV filters, and no mask policies,” the Nanaimo District Teachers’ Association said in a release. “This is a recipe for COVID transmission, and students and staff won’t safe.”
But Dr. Bonnie Henry says other precautions for COVID are in place and ventilation is being improved, where possible.
“There’s filters that can be used in some schools, not all schools have that ability, and there are HEPA filters in classrooms as well, portable air cleaners that can be used and people can use those at home,” Dr. Henry says. “For many people, the school is actually a safer environment than many homes. so yes it is perfectly safe for people to be in the school.”
Meteorologists now say it could be several days before the smoke clears.
“We need a more vigorous pacific storm to really change the atmosphere, to change the air mass so we get some of that clean pacific as opposed to this air coming up,” says Armel Castellan of Environment & Climate Change Canada.
A weak low pressure system moving in today wasn’t strong enough.
And with air quality at 10+ for the fourth straight day, Canada Post is suspending delivery in southern and central B.C. due to the serious health concerns.
“If you are exposed for 12 hours of smoke in the air, then that is like 12 hours of continued smoking,” says Dr. Zab Mosenifar of Cedars Sinai Medical Center.
The latest wildfire smoke model shows less severe conditions and possibly a brief break tomorrow as the smoke spreads over much of North America.
But NASA smoke modelling is predicting the smoky skies will stick around until at least the weekend for the B.C. south coast.
“Our air quality is actually going to get better and get worse kind of throughout the next few days before we get really a wholesale change in the air shed,” Castellan says.
Until then, your best bet is to stay inside, close the windows and avoid outdoor exercise.
Tess van Straaten
