Sask. Teachers' Federation warns of COVID-19 'nightmare' when classes resume

The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation wants a delayed start to the school year due to the growing concern of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.

"It looks like it's a nightmare that's slowly developing, that kind of slow train wreck that everybody's predicting, had the ability to predict the fourth wave," President Patrick Maze said.

“We have the ability to slow down the spread of Omicron and try to buy some time to mitigate the situation."

However, on Thursday Premier Scott Moe announced schools will be returning to in-person learning immediately following the holiday break.

“We do need to learn to live with COVID, we can’t keep our kids out of school forever,” said Moe.

Saskatchewan is the only province not delaying the start of in-person learning.

Maze said he would have liked a delay until Jan. 6 to assess staffing shortages while organizing students into cohorts and implementing other safety measures.

“You worry that this is going to hit a number of schools particularly hard and they'll be down 50 per cent of their staff,” said Maze. “We can’t guarantee student safety if there's a fight out in the playground. Who's going to go in and keep an eye on that?"

University of Saskatchewan epidemiologist Nazeeem Muhajarine says there is enough evidence for the province to put a pause on in-person learning.

“Let’s delay a little bit. Make sure that we work with school division administrators with school boards, and make sure that ventilation is in place. We have all the policies in place to keep kids safe and our teachers safe and then let's actually proceed to maybe open up schools.”

Muhajarine points out that many students from Kindergarten to Grade 7 don’t have a second dose of the vaccine.

“They’re like sitting ducks for Omicron.”