BARRIE, ONT. -- We're just a few weeks away from the sounding of the first bell, as schools across the province welcome students back to the classroom.

CTV's Madison Erhardt chats with Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch about back to school concerns.

CTV: How likely is the spread of COVID in the classroom, even with the measures being put in place?

Dr. Bogoch: Well, we know that the measures put in place are really geared to prevent COVID-19 from spreading between people under one roof. Of course, these measures are only as good as how well they are implemented in that school setting.

When we look at Ontario, for example, we have now seen a half a billion dollars into improving physical distancing. We've seen investments into ventilation in the classroom, and we know that masks are going to be worn.

There is a lot of different things that have been implemented to really make the school as safe as possible. Is it going to be perfect? No, of course not, but I think that it's a solid plan.

CTV: What are the concerns about buses?

Dr. Bogoch: Certainly, we know buses have the potential for COVID-19 transmission. You've got a lot of kids in an enclosed space and its usually for a long period of time, certainly more than 15 minutes in most cases, but there are things that can be done to make buses safer.

One is that you can add more buses so that you can spread kids out. The second is simple innovation, like opening up the windows to have better air circulation.

Now people might say in the wintertime that's not feasible but, you can turn up the heat on the bus, you can also put on a jacket and crack the windows a little bit. I think that will be helpful.

CTV: What do you think when you hear the projections for surges and outbreaks this fall that could overwhelm the health care system?

Dr. Bogoch: In the first wave in Canada, we never really saw our health care system overwhelmed, and a lot of this was related to Canada locking down and people adhering to public health guidelines.

There was tremendous surge capacity in most of the country that was never actually needed. We saw what happened to health care systems that exceeded their capacity New York, Wuhan China, to some extent right now Houston and some parts of Florida are going through that.

So it's really unfortunate. It's ugly, and it's preventable.

Now that doesn't mean that we won't be faced with a similar issue in the fall and winter.

Certainly, there is a tremendous amount of work being poured into preparing for a possible second wave, and I think it's obviously better to be prepared in case we get there.

But hopefully, we can prevent that by just adhering to fundamental public health principals.