Posted on Aug 9, 2021

Call to Provide Vaccines, Testing and PPE to Post-Secondary Campuses

Post-secondary students across the province are worrying about returning to classrooms in September as the UCP recklessly removes all COVID-19 health measures, including testing, tracing, and isolating.

On August 16, the UCP will stop all testing outside of hospitals for COVID-19, and will stop contact tracing of the virus. Currently, only 50.9 per cent of Albertans aged 20 - 24 have two doses of vaccine.

The Alberta NDP are calling on the UCP government to implement the following before the first day of classes in September:

  • Provide on-campus vaccination clinics at every post-secondary school in Alberta.
  • Ensure these clinics have the ability to provide testing for students, faculty and staff who develop symptoms consistent with COVID-19.
  • Invest $83 million for additional sanitization, cleaning staff, PPE and other necessary precautions for Alberta campuses. 

"Most students that I have consulted with want access to testing especially if they’re going to sit in lecture halls with hundreds of their peers. They not only want this for themselves, but they want to take personal responsibility for not spreading the virus to others." - David Eggen

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Mark Lehman

Posted

Any strategy must be established in the fact that Covid is airborne and spread via aerosol transmission. This means air quality must be measured, checked and reported upon. Scrubbed classrooms won’t stop Covid. But proper air filtration in each classroom should be mandatory. Plus PSI require contact tracing and profs/students should not be forced to take in person classes- online should be open to everyone. Classes are crowded, mask wearing isn’t consistent- dangerous. Plus there is no checking of vaccine passports to enter campus- but there is to watch a Flames game- how does that make sense? Leadership at PSI should develop a dashboard of reporting on a number of Covid related issues for the campus community. Regular online sessions to answer questions/concerns of all stakeholders. There is so much more that can be done. Perhaps admin should he watching the Protect our Province online sessions- because at the moment they only seem to care about meeting the GOA limited action plans. Post secondary campuses aren’t safe and crowded classes are something that should be eliminated-especially with cold weather arriving soon.