While calls are ramping up for child-care centres to have more access to COVID-19 testing and safety supplies, some operators are making the difficult decision to temporarily close their doors.
Treetop Children's Centre in Toronto, which provides nursery, preschool and before- and after-school programs, is one of them.
"We're ... closing all of our programs effective tomorrow, because our board of directors doesn't think that this government is providing us enough information and/or enough of a safety net to open safely because we have no access to any kind of rapid tests, no access to PCR testing, no mandatory reporting," Amy O'Neil, director of the centre, told QP Briefing on Tuesday.
The centre plans to stay closed until in-person learning in schools resumes. Virtual learning kicked off for Ontario students on Wednesday until at least Jan. 17. The government has said free emergency child care for school-aged children will be available to front-line workers during this period. Other centres operating programs for children up to four years old are allowed to stay open.
Carolyn Ferns, public policy coordinator of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, said she's heard of a couple of centres, including O'Neil's, that have decided to close this week until they have access to better masks and rapid tests for staff.
"They don't feel it'd be safe to open again without them," she said. "I'm hearing a lot of frustration in the sector and a lot of centres are struggling right now."
Ferns said some centres that previously offered emergency child care don't know if they can do so now because of "not feeling safe and also because of staffing shortages."
While COVID-19 case counts have recently soared, the provincial government updated its testing guidance last week, restricting PCR testing to high-risk individuals and those in high-risk settings. These groups include symptomatic hospital patients and patient-facing health-care workers, symptomatic students and school staff, high-risk contacts of people involved in an outbreak in a high-risk setting such as a hospital, long-term care home or retirement home and individuals from Indigenous communities or those travelling to them.
A Dec. 30 memo from the Ministry of Education to child-care operators confirmed that child-care programs were not included in the list of high-risk settings eligible for PCR testing. The government also said public health units can deploy rapid tests to child-care centres and schools.
"The current inability of the province to support PCR testing, it limits our ability to measure and manage known cases of COVID within our sector and within our community," said O'Neil. "We could possibly have half a dozen cases and not even know it."
O'Neil said she's particularly concerned given the Omicron variant.
"This is a very serious and we're just left to scramble to our own devices and make our own decisions," she said.
Ferns said she thinks the government should "absolutely" reinstate access to PCR testing for child-care staff and families.
"It would give people peace of mind and it would make things much easier for families," said Ferns, adding that without testing, cases won't be reported.
"Not only does it create anxiety for staff and families, but it's also just dangerous," she said, stressing that this is a setting with unvaccinated young children.
Ferns said it's tough for all parents right now, with those able to work from home having to decide whether or not they can manage the additional responsibility and should keep their children home from child care right now.
But many parents don't have a choice, she said.
"They need child care and so this is really hard I think for so many parents, and what I worry about is the stress that they're feeling about all this," said Ferns. "If their child needs to be in child care, it should be made as safe as possible to reduce the stress that they're feeling and also just to make it safer."
In addition to testing, Ferns said she'd also like the government to prioritize early childhood educators for vaccines and get supplies including masks and filters to child-care centres as soon as possible.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in a statement that the government has "elevated our safety protocols in child care, including stricter screening and deploying unfitted N95 masks to support frontline workers as we take action to protect families from COVID-19."
The ministry memo said anyone with COVID-19 symptoms, regardless of vaccination status, would be required to isolate.
For families, this could mean keeping their child home, but continuing to pay child-care fees, said O'Neil, adding that "without additional funding from the government, it's not sustainable to allow families to not be here and not pay."
As for personal protective equipment, O'Neil said Tuesday that she hadn't received any N95 masks, with the ministry noting it was working with the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services to ship them to licensed child-care providers beginning this week.
Meanwhile, the government also noted in its memo, and in a separate one to school boards, that it would "suspend reporting of COVID-19 cases in child care" and in schools due to "changes to case and contact management." Child-care advocates and opposition parties have called on the government to reverse this decision.
"We need that information, transparency is so important at this point in time," Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said on Tuesday. The NDP also said last week it wanted the government to walk back this decision.
In a statement Wednesday, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner called on the government to immediately provide N95 masks for child-care staff, prioritized vaccines for staff and families, plus access to testing and HEPA filters for centres.
“Children and child-care workers have been left to fend for themselves by Doug Ford’s missing pandemic plan," he said. "Ford needs to remember that most of these children are ineligible for COVID vaccines and most are too young to wear masks, making these settings high risk for the children and for the child-care workers."

Child-care advocate says the sector’s frustration is growing over a lack of pandemic supplies

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