The year is 2025. A freak mutation of virus C, which caused a world-wide pandemic in 2020, was identified in 2021, which made it more virulent. Patient zero is thought to be American, which is unsurprising due to the uncontrolled nature of the virus in the United States, but has quickly spread to Canada. In response to this new situation the Canadian government ordered a full lockdown in July of 2021, and the provincial ministries of education were consequently forced to transfer all learning to online platforms. While by 2022 the pandemic had subsided, the Ministry of Ed continues to mandate a 100% online teaching policy for fear that a re-introduction by a traveller could result in a rapid re-emergence of the virus. While some critics among parents and experts accuse the re-elected Chevrolet government for closing schools with the purpose of cutting education costs, the government sustains that online schooling is maintained purely for public health reasons.

The year is 2025. A freak mutation of Virus C, which caused a worldwide pandemic in 2020, was identified in 2021, which made it more virulent. Patient zero is thought to be American, which is unsurprising due to the uncontrolled nature of the virus in the United States but has quickly spread to Canada. In response to this new situation, the Canadian government ordered a full lockdown in July of 2021, and the provincial ministries of education were consequently forced to transfer all learning to online platforms. While by 2022 the pandemic had subsided, the Ontario Ministry of Education continues to mandate a 100% online teaching policy for fear that a re-introduction by a traveller could result in a rapid re-emergence of the virus. While some critics among parents and experts accuse the re-elected provincial Chevrolet government for closing schools with the purpose of cutting education costs, the government sustains that online schooling is maintained purely for public health reasons.

With the education system moved completely online in September 2021, the use of schools as spaces for learning became obsolete. Within the first four weeks of the closure, school administrators and staff selectively cleared all classrooms of learning materials. Due to the increasing case numbers of Virus C and the need for medical emergency spaces, school buildings were quickly adapted to testing and quarantine care centres for those who had no private spaces at home to be properly quarantined.

Many Ontarians objected to the use of empty schools as testing/quarantine centres due to the buildings’ proximity to large familial neighbourhoods with high populations of children and the elderly. In an address to the province in October 2021, the provincial Chevrolet government acknowledged that the new use of schools would be beneficial to those who did not wish to travel far from their homes and families for testing and quarantine. Two weeks later, protests against the repurposing of school spaces were held in spite of the serious health risks. Parents and school administrators said that the adaption of schools to medical centres “completely destroyed the hopes of a return to normalcy” and “would make all schools unsafe to return to if Virus C gets worse.”