Another 6,819 students in Waterloo Region are on the verge of being suspended from school for not having their vaccine records up-to-date.
A couple of weeks ago, Waterloo Public Health announced suspensions for 2,969 elementary school students under the Immunization of School Pupils Act.
As of Monday, there were still 410 elementary students who remained suspended from school.
But on Monday, the focus also turned to high schools as Public Health announced it had issued another 6,819 suspension orders for that cohort.
The agency says that high school students have until the end of the month to get their vaccination records up to date or valid exemptions in place before suspensions kick in on May 1.
“While we continue to work with families to resolve the remaining elementary school suspensions, we urge secondary school student families who have received a suspension notice to act quickly to ensure vaccination records are updated before May 1,” said Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, medical officer of health.
“Students who are not vaccinated are at an increased risk of severe infections and spreading them to others.”
For several months, the region has been campaigning for people to get their children’s vaccinations up to date, including sending letters home to parents on a couple of occasions, warning that students’ records needed to be up to date or they would be suspended.
It announced in January that 32,000 students did not have up-to-date records: 22,000 elementary students and 10,000 high school students.
A couple of weeks ago, Wang said that 24,500 outdated vaccination records had been resolved.
WPH says that the majority of high school students who are not up-to-date with their vaccinations are missing one or both of the meningococcal ACYW-135 vaccine and the teen booster of tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, with the latter being required 10 years after the initial dose.
It says those who are in bad graces can book an appointment or update their records on Waterloo Region’s website.
The last time suspensions over immunizations were issued was in 2019, when 1,032 students were suspended.
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