More than three-quarters of measles cases in the province have been unvaccinated children, infants and teens.Annie Rice/Reuters
Summer camps in Ontario are warning parents that unless they can provide proof of vaccination, kids will be sent home if there is a measles case.
With a little more than a month to go before summer camp begins for children across the province, many camps have begun reaching out to parents asking them to submit proof that their children have been immunized.
“We have a good lead time to hopefully get as organized as possible,” says Howie Grossinger, the co-owner of three summer camps in Ontario.
Under the provincial law, whenever there is a measles case in any setting, including camps, unvaccinated individuals are required to isolate for 21 days, the duration of the measles’ incubation period.
There have been more than 1,600 measles cases in Ontario since an outbreak began last October, including 182 new cases in the past week, according to Public Health Ontario.
More than three-quarters of cases in the province have been unvaccinated children, infants and teens.
It is important for camps to follow health protocols diligently because by bringing together children from across the province, they pose a risk of dispersing measles widely if there is a case, according to Alon Vaisman, an infectious diseases and infection control physician at Toronto’s University Health Network.
“There are pockets of populations in Ontario that have low vaccination rates, so there’s more higher chances of sustained transmission,” Dr. Vaisman says.
Measles could keep spreading for a year, says Canada’s chief public health officer
Jack Goodman, the owner and director of Camp New Moon, in Baysville, Ont., and the former chair of the Ontario Camps Association’s COVID-19 Taskforce, led a webinar on measles protocols for more than 100 OCA member camps earlier this week.
One of the main topics was how to communicate health protocols and the potential consequences for campers who are not vaccinated, he says.
“It’s important to make those communications so they’re judgment-free,” Mr. Goodman told those in attendance.
But they also need to understand the consequences if a measles case is identified.
“It’s up to the camps to communicate with the parents who purposefully have not vaccinated their children and let them understand that that’s their choice. They have a right to choose, but they have to understand that these are the implications if measles appears at the camp,” Mr. Goodman says.
Some of those who attended the webinar wondered about giving refunds to any campers who might be sent home, or continuing to pay staff who might be forced to isolate.
Camps were hit hard financially by the pandemic, and so allaying fears of more closings was another major topic of the webinar.
“We want camps to feel confident that they aren’t going to be closed if they have a bad run of luck and it happens that two or three kids aren’t vaccinated, and somehow someone catches measles because they’re exposed, or they’ve come into camp and it’s still sort of incubating,” Mr. Goodman says.
Mr. Grossinger’s camps are working with families and staff to help them understand how to obtain their proof of vaccination and submit it.
Making sure counsellors and other staff have proof of immunization is crucial, although they might require a bit more help in getting their paperwork in order, Mr. Grossinger says. “Not every 18-year-old staff member knows exactly where their vaccination record is,” he says.
Mr. Grossinger doesn’t expect parents to take issue with the protocols in place for camps this summer.
“All of us in camp world just want to protect our community. The best way we can is to get that information and just help families to understand that to protect the community and all the kids, we have to follow the protocols that are in place.”
link
