For background, I work as a private instructor. A student, in a more populated region of Ontario, came to our session a little upset.
He had mentioned that this morning, around 9.30am, he got set home because he coughed ONCE. Just a little dry throat kind of cough. His teacher and principal took that as "he might have COVID". The kid tried defend himself but the school staff were adament that he had to go home.
His father had to pick him up from school, and the dad was also upset by how ridiculous this situation was. The child isn't allowed to go back to school until he takes a COVID test and shows it's negative to the school.
In the meantime, he hasn't been given any work and no notice that he'll be temporarily online. He's just going to have to wait till the test result come back. Additionally, Ontario just increased the PCR cycles to 35 from 30.
I want to say this is no surprise, but I was actually speechless that the school staff went that far, for a single cough, when everyone is wearing masks anyways.
Its like the staff are just waiting for an excuse to pounce on students for minor infractions. Is there a special report to fill out for something like this? If so, I sense it is directly connected to ensuring the numbers remain as high and as scary as possible.
Sneeze? Corona. Cough once? Corona. Stub toe? Lack of sleep due to Corona. Sore elbow? Not enough mRNA vaccine, most likely has Corona.