Catherine Bancroft, like most parents these days, describes herself as “generally overwhelmed.”
A therapist and social worker, she was trying to work from home earlier this week while caring for her twin sons, one of whom had just urinated on the floor.
“Right now I’m fine, but it can be a lot,” she said in a telephone interview, as her children clamored for her attention.
Bancroft plans to send its children back to daycare on Monday, but with the province’s current restrictions on testing for COVID-19, which excludes child care workers and children, it fears the prospect of more challenging days like this.
for him new guidelines announced on December 30, symptomatic testing is limited to “high risk” people and those who work in “high risk” settings, such as hospitals and long-term care homes.
The province also released new screening guidelines, which reintroduced a runny nose as a COVID-19 screening symptom for schools and daycare centers, but only if it occurs in combination with at least one other secondary symptom.
Those who have symptoms but are not considered high risk should assume they have COVID-19 and isolate themselves with their household contacts for at least five days, 10 days if unvaccinated and 12 years or older.
“That’s not a viable plan,” Bancroft said, noting how common it is for young children to have cold symptoms in the winter.
She is one of more than 10,000 people who have signed a request calling on the province to allow children in kindergarten access to take-home polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which were administered to primary and secondary school students before the holidays. If you could access a PCR test, Bancroft said, you might only have to leave your children home for a day or two if they had any cold symptoms.
Without a change in testing rules, Bancroft believes parents should be compensated for the time they have to miss work to care for their children.
“Are we getting money to pay for child care to cover these five days, or are they paying us sick days? What is the compensation for that? “
Child care operators are also asking the province to give them access to any type of test (PCR or rapid antigen) and want them to resume tracking cases in child care settings. They are warning of an impending personnel crisis and the need for more financial support to stay afloat.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Christine Elliott said the testing and isolation guidelines were updated to prioritize and protect people living and working in the highest-risk settings amid the increase in cases due to the highly Omicron variant. transmissible.
“As the situation around the Omicron variant continues to evolve, we will continue to assess PCR eligibility on an ongoing basis in the context of capacity for sample collection and laboratory processing,” said Alexandra Hilkene.
Regarding rapid tests, Hilkene said the province is currently facing a supply crisis and the most vulnerable sectors are being prioritized. “Once Ontario receives a sufficient supply of rapid tests, we intend to make more available to support the ongoing operations of child care centers and schools when they return to in-person learning.”
The province announced Thursday that “Speed up” access for booster shots for education and child care workers in the greater Toronto and Hamilton areas and, beginning Monday, will provide non-fit-tested N95 masks to child care staff.
But for many in the child care sector, the trial decision is just the latest example of a government continuing to rely on them to keep the province running while ignoring what they need to operate safely.
“The industry is truly in the biggest crisis we have been in since the start of the pandemic,” said Amy O’Neil, executive director of Treetop Children’s Center and president of the Toronto Community for Better Child Care. “We are considered essential, but we are not essential enough to perform PCR testing for unvaccinated children.”
O’Neil decided to close his daycare when the school closings were announced, in part due to a lack of evidence.
“We decided that if we can’t assess, we can’t monitor staff safety,” he said.
Among Ontario children, the highest hospitalization rate is for those under the age of five, the only group not eligible for vaccination. According to the Latest Ontario Public Health data, there are currently 43 children under the age of five hospitalized with COVID-19 in the province, or 5.9 per 100,000, compared to 17 children between the ages of five and 19, or 0.7 per 100,000.
“There is a lot of fear and uncertainty surrounding COVID and its transmission in centers,” said Alana Powell, executive director of the Ontario Association of Early Childhood Educators. “People are really scared and overwhelmed right now.”
Carolyn Ferns, public policy and government relations coordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, said the child care industry feels “abandoned” again by the Doug Ford administration.
“It is not even surprising at this point that the provincial government simply ignores the needs in child care while waiting for the sector to step up and do more,” he said, citing the pandemic nonpayment for child care workers and how they were initially excluded. of priority vaccination last year before the province changed course.
Noting that Ontario is the only province that has yet to reach a childcare agreement with Ottawa, Ferns said the Ford administration is “tragically out of step” with the rest of the country.
“They still don’t understand how important childcare is, and I really care now because we have a sector that is on the brink.”
Reference-www.thestar.com