As Quebec announces it’s looking at May 11th to reopen elementary schools and daycare centres, BC has no plans to follow suit.

Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry says it is working with the Ministry of Education to come out with its own rational plan. “We need to make sure that we are able to provide the educational services that are needed, particularly for those younger children who can’t stay home by themselves if their parents are going off to work.”

“That’s the focus of the next little while, how do we do that and safely and making sure we have physical distancing. The idea around wearing of masks is not something that we do a lot in our culture. It is something that we can consider in certain circumstances and we’ve talked about that a little bit, particularly when you can’t maintain the physical distancing.”

“I know there are a lot of discussions about how this could happen for small groups over the coming months and we’ll have a plan for that coming up soon. So no specific date.”

Henry expects there will be some children back to school before the end of this session, but what that looks like is still being worked out.