Schools are starting to reopen and, as with the past school year, there's still the lingering fear of a COVID outbreak. And, on top of that, many kids will be starting preschool this year and a whole lot of them born during the pandemic have never really experienced the outside world. Their first day in pre-school could be the first time they're exposed directly to regular germs we find in the community.

Today we asked the Director of Public Health and Wellness for the advice she'd give to these parents.

Dr Melissa Diaz, Director, Public Health and Wellness
"I think that we remain with the similar advice that we have before with, if your child is sick or if somebody at home has flu like symptoms, has a cough, cold, feeling fatigued, fever, not to send their child to school, to inform the school that somebody at home has tested positive for COVID 19, just to ensure that we can break the transition and ensure that we don't have another outbreak of COVID 19. As you all know there are many different sub variants circulating so if you have gotten COVID before you can get it again with a very different sub variant and yes the symptoms may not be as severe but if you speak to many people now, back in COVID, it's not just a COVID, they have significant symptoms , lying in bed, diarrhea, cough, fever and so it's not something that we know a lot about, especially with regards to the long COVID so we really do need to ensure that we keep the message up to break this transmission to ensure that people do what is necessary to continue to spread."

Courtney Menzies:
"Can you give us an update on the vaccines, when we'll be getting more, and if it's even worth it considering the newer variants are more resilient against it?"

Dr Melissa Diaz, Director, Public Health and Wellness
"Well definitely for the vaccines for the children who are 12 and above, yes we are getting Pfizer in, more than likely, the estimated time is in another few weeks so especially for vulnerable populations, yes we are encouraging this and for persons who have gotten one booster or who may not have gotten any booster so their last vaccine would have been last year sometime, we are encouraging that we come in and get this vaccine when we get it in a couple weeks' time. We do have the pediatric Pfizer at this point and our nurses will start the school campaign again as soon as school starts."

Channel 7