New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Child care centers in Conn. see rise in COVID cases
Child care facilities make up part of the puzzle of essential services that prop up Connecticut’s economy. But as the number of COVID-19 cases in the state rise once again, more cases are popping up at day care centers as well, a fact that has been mentioned by municipal health officials during recent briefings.
Childhood experts this week said day care centers are not themselves active spreaders of the virus. But as cases increase in a community, they will in child care centers as well — as they will in all places people gather.
Experts said parents who need child care should ask questions to make sure a facility is taking the steps necessary to keep children safe.
Dr. Walter Gilliam, who studies child psychology and psychiatry at Yale University, first demonstrated in October that day care centers are not super spreader locations.
“While plenty of U.S. child care workers contracted COVID-19 in May and June, it wasn’t driven by whether they were working with children or not,” Gilliam said then.
His study surveyed 57,000 child care providers across 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto
Rico during the summer months — and compared self-reported coronavirus infections and hospitalizations between workers at child care facilities that remained open to those that closed.
COVID-19 incidences remained relatively constant among the two groups.
Gilliam said it’s impossible to understand the risk purely associated with working in early childhood education, since all employees also exist within the context of their communities. Child care workers are just as likely to contract COVID in their professional environments as they are at the grocery store or while interacting with others.
“Basically, child care didn’t add to your risk of getting it from living in your community,” said Gilliam in an interview this week. “But it doesn’t take risk away either magically.”
Child care workers are particularly vigilant about adhering to safety protocols, Gilliam said.
Almost 80 percent of family service providers who continued working during the pandemic were worried or very worried that they could contract the virus and infect the children in their care, according to his findings. That worry translated into wearing masks more often, refraining from social gatherings and simply social distancing.
“In other words, it wasn’t just that these amazing people are caring about keeping our babies safe when they were actually at the child care program,” said Gilliam. “They were also worried about our babies when they were at the grocery store.”
But worry and precaution have not stopped the coronavirus at the center door.
“If there’s like a lot of spread in the community… it’s going to get into the child care program anyway,” said Gilliam.
Stamford’s Director of Health Jennifer Calder sees a rise in day care cases linked to parents going to work, becoming infected and, in turn, infecting their families.
“Because families are being exposed, we are now seeing a lot of exposures in day care,” said Calder at the city’s COVID-19 update this week.
Marc Jaffe is CEO of the Children’s Learning Centers of Fairfield County, the second largest early childhood education program in the state. At its eight Stamford locations, CLC typically serves 950 children across the city. That number has dropped drastically because of the pandemic.
CLC has been strictly adhering to CDC guidelines for child care since opening again in May. Still, as COVID-19 grows in the community, Jaffe has also seen it grow in his facilities.
“The first 18 weeks, we had about five cases. In the last three weeks, we had six,” said Jaffe. “So there has been clearly an increase in the number of children who have gotten COVID.”
Fritz Chery, who serves as interim director of Greenwich’s Grace Daycare and Learning Center, has also been seeing more cases at his facility. Between July and early November, there were no cases of COVID-19 among students or staff at Grace.
“On November 6, we had our first person show symptoms,” said Chery, who also serves on Stamford’s Board of Education. “Then afterwards, a week later, I decided to close once we received another four cases.”
Chery plans to keep his facility closed until Dec. 1 to limit exposures for a full two weeks before reopening with additional safety precautions.
Beth Bye, commissioner for the state Office of Early Childhood, said increases are happening across the state.
For the most recent four-week period, child care facilities cumulatively across the state on average reported 27 cases of COVID-19 per week. In the four weeks prior, the department was only seeing seven reported cases per week. She expects that the number will only rise in the next report.
Day care providers rely on parents to let them know of a potential problem. In some instances, families have failed to tell care providers that a child was exposed to the virus or that a family member had tested positive.
“In multiple instances, at least four or five that come to mind, had we known sooner… 60, 70 children would not have had to be quarantined. We would not have had to close the classrooms down,” said Jaffe.
For parents worried about keeping their children safe even as positivity rates go higher, Yale’s Gilliam recommended that they hold off on child care if not absolutely necessary. But, for those who need it, he encouraged parents to keep track of the safety precautions a center employs.
Parents should ask care providers directly about precautions like cohorting students in different rooms, temperature checks and symptom screenings. Gilliam encourages all those measures for maximizing safety while at day care.
“The next question would become, ‘Do the child programs that you’re interested in … have access to the supply and the staffing and the materials and the resources necessary to control these things?’” said Gilliam.
“If the child care provider you will be leaving your child with is nervous about whether or not they have what they need to in order to succeed,” said Gilliam. “That’s all the information you need to know.”