TORONTO -- Doctors are divided on Quebec's plan to reopen elementary schools and daycares, with one saying the move could create a second wave of COVID-19 infections in the province.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Abdu Sharkawy told CTV's Your Morning that it is too soon for provinces to reopen schools amid the pandemic.

"I think congregate settings are really the big risk for striking a secondary wave of the pandemic. And I frankly don't really see there being the likelihood of herd immunity being something that could play a part here," Sharkawy said in an interview on Tuesday. "I think the risk is certainly much higher than the benefits."

Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced on Monday that the province will begin reopening elementary schools and daycares outside of Montreal on May 11 and inside the city on May 19, but attendance will not be mandatory. High schools, junior colleges and universities in the province will not reopen until September.

The premier said in a news conference that he is reopening elementary schools because COVID-19 infections are "under control" everywhere in the province, with the exception of long-term care homes.

Sharkawy said he is not sure Quebec health officials can actually prove that.

"Until you know what the extent of the background infection rate is in your community you can't really make that statement very convincing. The other problem is that children, while not normally affected very badly by COVID-19, serve as very good vectors of transmission of viruses," he said.

"Anybody who has young children in daycare can tell you, they bring a lot home with them. My concern is that could happen and could certainly trigger a secondary wave of pandemic."

Quebec has been hardest-hit by COVID-19, with nearly 26,000 reported cases in the province, but pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Joanna Merckx said the risk associated with reopening schools is small.

"It is known that children get infected with SARS-CoV-2, but there is no real evidence that children are also actively transmitting the infection back to adults and other children," Merckx said in an interview with CTV News Channel on Tuesday.

"What is clear is that children are not big drivers of transmission. So [the concern] is mainly more focused on the adults that are together at the school environment than the kids that are interacting with each other and then return back to the families," she added.

Merckx said the impact of children staying home when they should be in school outweigh the health impact of them possibly catching the virus.

"I agree that it's time for children to go back to school because this is where they really are supposed to be. The direct negative effects of COVID-19 in children are very limited [but] the indirect effects of children being home are very large," Merckx said. She said that children staying at home can place a burden on families and have lasting, negative consequences for kids including disruptions to their education as well as to their time with friends.

"Children going back to school will be kind of a piece of the solution," Merckx said.

However, Merckx said Legault’s push of so-called "herd immunity," or natural immunity to COVID-19, is not a reason for reopening schools.

"What we see is when children get infected with SARS-CoV-2 is that they're not severely infected," she said. "[But] we know from other countries as well that the percentage of immune people that we reach by having been infected is not large enough."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in his daily press briefing on Tuesday that he would have to evaluate "what the situation looked like in two weeks" before deciding whether to send his kids back to school.

"I'd want to know what the school was planning on doing, whether the desks were going to be properly spaced, whether there would be plans at recess in terms of keeping people separated," Trudeau said. "These are all details that need to be worked out to the satisfaction, not just of governments, but of the school boards, of teachers, of everyone who works in the schools and especially of kids, their parents and grandparents."

The latest national COVID-19 modelling shows overall that public health measures are working, but Trudeau urged Canadians to be "very, very careful."

"There are plans and there are hopes that we're going to be able to see certain parts of the country take steps, including Quebec around elementary schools, but we're not there yet. Those projections are for a few weeks off and one hopes that the trend lines will bring us to a place where we'll be able to see that happen," Trudeau said.

Sharkawy said the reopening of schools in Quebec could spark outbreaks in other areas across the province.

"If [cases] start to reignite, that's going to be an indication that there is a community spread," Sharkawy said. "If there's any clustering of cases in schools or any other congregate environments, that's going to be an indication that things are not under control, and we're really going to have to be a lot more aggressive."