Schools to close, daycares to stay open

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This article was published 16/03/2020 (2196 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While the province has made the decision to cancel classes in the province’s school in a week, daycares will remain open — for now.

Dr. Brent Roussin, the province’s chief public health officer, said during a news conference on Sunday that while school classes will be “suspended” on March 23 — giving parents a week to make alternate child care plans — what to do with children in daycares is still under discussion.

“In the child care centres, it tends to be less amounts of kids in one room than it would be in schools, and we know that impact on parents — especially parents in health care,” Roussin said.

“We haven’t made a decision on that, but we continue to meet on that. Hopefully we will have some steps going forward.”

Lanette Siragusa, chief nursing officer for Shared Health, said parents of school aged children who are health care professionals “will have to make plans.”

“We have a week to figure that out,” she said. “We do expect there will be an impact on staffing, but we will work around that.”

Jodie Kehl, of the Manitoba Child Care Association, confirmed the organization is continuing to have discussions with the province about how to look after daycare-aged children safely.

“First and foremost, MCCA wants what is best for children, families and our ELCC (early learning and child care) sector,” Kehl said.

“We don’t want to politicize this, but we want to ensure the safety and well-being of all Manitobans and, in this case, the youngest ones.”

Kehl said they want to follow the advice of federal and provincial authorities for social distancing, but they continue to have questions.

“Is this feasible in an early learning and child care environment?” she said. “If we want to stay ahead of the virus, should programs be closed? Since learning of this on Friday afternoon, we have these and many other questions.

“MCCA has been communicating with the province and is interested in continuing to discuss the protocols and precautions that child care programs will be taking. The province is taking their direction from the provincial public health officer, Dr. Roussin, who is the medical expert. As with everyone else, we are living moment to moment as new information becomes available.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca