Covid at daycare/preschool - outdated policies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This system is going to disincentive even taking a Covid test. A positive test is like a kiss of death for two-three weeks for you and all the families in the daycare. Flame away, but if my kid has a slight cold or a fever from now on, I will keep him/her at home for a couple of days, but won't test.

We cant do that. If our kid is sick, which is the only reason I would keep them home, we have to test to return.

That's for your kid. Parents getting sick is a different issue. I know a parent who had a mild case of COVID (sick for two days), then the spouse got it a few days later, but the kids never got it. The youngest had to quarantine for 25 days from daycare!

day 1 = 1st parent symptoms
day 5 = 2nd parent symptoms
day 15 = 2nd parent isolation
day 25 = when child could return to daycare based on starting a quarantine on day 15

So yes, if one has a runny nose, it does make one hesitant about testing, and I think about saying when symptoms started, or what consistutes an exposure to a parent. What if I stay in a room all day and only come out after day 5 with a mask?

This. You can try to virtue signal all you want but 25 days without child care would have serious consequences for many families and at this stage of the pandemic you can't deny a lot of these will not test.

Yeah, that is pretty outrageous / impossible. My daycare doesn't require this any more. Not sure if they require the parent to mask/isolate from the child, but I know a parent just had COVID and their kid was back within 5 days (maybe less).

I actually think we'll be in a different situation by fall. Eitehr the <5 vaccine will be approved or not, but childcare will have to move on and update policies. I am very frustrated the CDC isn't leading this, but local helath agencies could also take some leadership here.

I sure hope so. I think the CDC has been putting this off so that they have a carrot to get parents to vaccinate their kids. But if EUA for <5 doesn’t happen over the summer then they really really need to move on from the current guidance. It’s been very frustrating for a while but bordering on inexcusable.

So they’re playing games with people. Cool cool. Totally normal. Nothing to see here.

Yep, I would be absolutely livid if this were the reasoning. And I'm someone who would be first in line to vaccinate my toddler and puts a lot of trust in health/science authorities generally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is OSSE/DCHealth policy that a positive case in a daycare results in a 5 day classroom shutdown. I'll look for the link to the "official" document stating this; it's hard to find. DCPS can implement test-to-stay, but daycares cannot. Why? OSSE says it's b/c of the "vulnerable populations" at daycares (i.e., children 2 yrs old and under). Even taking that at face value, why not adopt an AGE-BASED criterion for test-to-stay (i.e., only children age 2 and older can test-to-stay, otherwise it's a 5 day quarantine). At present, test-to-stay is based on LOCATION where a child is enrolled, not age. So a 2 year old enrolled in DCPS pk3 (i.e., a child with a September birthday who begins school in August) can test-to-stay, but a 2 year old enrolled in daycare cannot. 3 and 4 year olds enrolled in DCPS can test-to-stay. 3 and 4 year olds enrolled in daycare cannot. That hurts families (it's disruptive for working adults and children alike). I've been in touch w/ OSSE on this and urge anyone else interested to start emailing and calling.

That's untrue: there is no policy mandating classrooms to be shut down, only for non-fully vaccinated close contacts to quarantine.

[Anonymous]

in arlington there is no quarantine, it is test to stay. has there been any study/comparison of how these different policies actually affect covid transmission and whether there is utility in one over another?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This system is going to disincentive even taking a Covid test. A positive test is like a kiss of death for two-three weeks for you and all the families in the daycare. Flame away, but if my kid has a slight cold or a fever from now on, I will keep him/her at home for a couple of days, but won't test.

We cant do that. If our kid is sick, which is the only reason I would keep them home, we have to test to return.

That's for your kid. Parents getting sick is a different issue. I know a parent who had a mild case of COVID (sick for two days), then the spouse got it a few days later, but the kids never got it. The youngest had to quarantine for 25 days from daycare!

day 1 = 1st parent symptoms
day 5 = 2nd parent symptoms
day 15 = 2nd parent isolation
day 25 = when child could return to daycare based on starting a quarantine on day 15

So yes, if one has a runny nose, it does make one hesitant about testing, and I think about saying when symptoms started, or what consistutes an exposure to a parent. What if I stay in a room all day and only come out after day 5 with a mask?

This. You can try to virtue signal all you want but 25 days without child care would have serious consequences for many families and at this stage of the pandemic you can't deny a lot of these will not test.

Yeah, that is pretty outrageous / impossible. My daycare doesn't require this any more. Not sure if they require the parent to mask/isolate from the child, but I know a parent just had COVID and their kid was back within 5 days (maybe less).

I actually think we'll be in a different situation by fall. Eitehr the <5 vaccine will be approved or not, but childcare will have to move on and update policies. I am very frustrated the CDC isn't leading this, but local helath agencies could also take some leadership here.

I sure hope so. I think the CDC has been putting this off so that they have a carrot to get parents to vaccinate their kids. But if EUA for <5 doesn’t happen over the summer then they really really need to move on from the current guidance. It’s been very frustrating for a while but bordering on inexcusable.

So they’re playing games with people. Cool cool. Totally normal. Nothing to see here.

Yep, I would be absolutely livid if this were the reasoning. And I'm someone who would be first in line to vaccinate my toddler and puts a lot of trust in health/science authorities generally.

I don’t know what other reason there could possibly be, other than sheer incompetence. Which isn’t out of the realm of possibility, I did receive a response from someone at CDC a few weeks ago claiming they DID update the daycare/ECE guidance and then provided a link to the page that hadn’t been updated since January.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is OSSE/DCHealth policy that a positive case in a daycare results in a 5 day classroom shutdown. I'll look for the link to the "official" document stating this; it's hard to find. DCPS can implement test-to-stay, but daycares cannot. Why? OSSE says it's b/c of the "vulnerable populations" at daycares (i.e., children 2 yrs old and under). Even taking that at face value, why not adopt an AGE-BASED criterion for test-to-stay (i.e., only children age 2 and older can test-to-stay, otherwise it's a 5 day quarantine). At present, test-to-stay is based on LOCATION where a child is enrolled, not age. So a 2 year old enrolled in DCPS pk3 (i.e., a child with a September birthday who begins school in August) can test-to-stay, but a 2 year old enrolled in daycare cannot. 3 and 4 year olds enrolled in DCPS can test-to-stay. 3 and 4 year olds enrolled in daycare cannot. That hurts families (it's disruptive for working adults and children alike). I've been in touch w/ OSSE on this and urge anyone else interested to start emailing and calling.

That's untrue: there is no policy mandating classrooms to be shut down, only for non-fully vaccinated close contacts to quarantine.

Right, but in a daycare that is the entire classroom in most cases (unless you have vaccinated 5 yos). At my daycare, even the classrooms with vaccinated 5 yos have been shutdown if there are only 1 or 2 5 yos in the class.

[Anonymous]

Oh my goodness, of course these policies are a sad attempt to motivate vaccination, which of course is hard to do when there are no vaccines for the young kids. If they change the policies they admit that the vaccines don't make a large difference in transmission and that getting vaccinated is to protect yourself from severe outcomes and protect the hospital systems. But then they have to also admit that they are giving up on slowing transmission (which they've basically already done) because they would otherwise have to start quarantining vaccinated people again and that is not going to happen. It's really quite a conundrum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both of my children's daycare/preschool classrooms were completely shut down this week because of two separate covid cases. I will have two weeks of juggling childcare and work and no compensation for the closure.

WHY are we still doing this. Why has every segment of society essentially returned to normal except daycares? I understand that small children cannot get a vaccine but its been proven time and again that small children are not seriously affected by Covid. I have accepted that this is endemic, but why have daycares not.

What is your daycare's policy? Are they all living like this is 2020?

Yes!

They shutdown for 10 days when there's a case. Meanwhile, school age kid can still go to school when there's a case in his class.

Our daycare has gone totally bonkers- right now half of the classes are shut down for post it I’ve cases, including the “older” pre-K where every kid is 5. And even that room is shutdown for 10 days! It makes no sense. I thought we’d get some relief when we get EUA for under 5 and can vaccinated are our 3yo but now it seems like it’s not going to make any difference. I REALLY don’t want to switch daycares, DC loves it there. But now I wonder if this is going to be a regular occurrence until they go to kindergarten, which is still 2 years away.

I would switch. Close contact quarantining should be identical to infected persons quaratine.

Wait, what? Infected people should be 5 days, then mask, right? Close contacts are generally not quarrantining anymore, except in (some) daycares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This system is going to disincentive even taking a Covid test. A positive test is like a kiss of death for two-three weeks for you and all the families in the daycare. Flame away, but if my kid has a slight cold or a fever from now on, I will keep him/her at home for a couple of days, but won't test.

We cant do that. If our kid is sick, which is the only reason I would keep them home, we have to test to return.

That's for your kid. Parents getting sick is a different issue. I know a parent who had a mild case of COVID (sick for two days), then the spouse got it a few days later, but the kids never got it. The youngest had to quarantine for 25 days from daycare!

day 1 = 1st parent symptoms
day 5 = 2nd parent symptoms
day 15 = 2nd parent isolation
day 25 = when child could return to daycare based on starting a quarantine on day 15

So yes, if one has a runny nose, it does make one hesitant about testing, and I think about saying when symptoms started, or what consistutes an exposure to a parent. What if I stay in a room all day and only come out after day 5 with a mask?

This. You can try to virtue signal all you want but 25 days without child care would have serious consequences for many families and at this stage of the pandemic you can't deny a lot of these will not test.

Yeah, that is pretty outrageous / impossible. My daycare doesn't require this any more. Not sure if they require the parent to mask/isolate from the child, but I know a parent just had COVID and their kid was back within 5 days (maybe less).

I actually think we'll be in a different situation by fall. Eitehr the <5 vaccine will be approved or not, but childcare will have to move on and update policies. I am very frustrated the CDC isn't leading this, but local helath agencies could also take some leadership here.

I sure hope so. I think the CDC has been putting this off so that they have a carrot to get parents to vaccinate their kids. But if EUA for <5 doesn’t happen over the summer then they really really need to move on from the current guidance. It’s been very frustrating for a while but bordering on inexcusable.

So they’re playing games with people. Cool cool. Totally normal. Nothing to see here.

Yep, I would be absolutely livid if this were the reasoning. And I'm someone who would be first in line to vaccinate my toddler and puts a lot of trust in health/science authorities generally.

I don’t know what other reason there could possibly be, other than sheer incompetence. Which isn’t out of the realm of possibility, I did receive a response from someone at CDC a few weeks ago claiming they DID update the daycare/ECE guidance and then provided a link to the page that hadn’t been updated since January.

It is sheer incompetance, IMO. The focus is elsewhere. Vaccinations in the under 5 crowd aren't a priority for anyone, except for (some) parents of <5s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We haven't had a case in a couple of months, and I think it's because no one is testing. The policy seems to be don't ask, don't tell.

Ding ding ding! This is the path forward!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both of my children's daycare/preschool classrooms were completely shut down this week because of two separate covid cases. I will have two weeks of juggling childcare and work and no compensation for the closure.

WHY are we still doing this. Why has every segment of society essentially returned to normal except daycares? I understand that small children cannot get a vaccine but its been proven time and again that small children are not seriously affected by Covid. I have accepted that this is endemic, but why have daycares not.

What is your daycare's policy? Are they all living like this is 2020?

Yes!

They shutdown for 10 days when there's a case. Meanwhile, school age kid can still go to school when there's a case in his class.

Our daycare has gone totally bonkers- right now half of the classes are shut down for post it I’ve cases, including the “older” pre-K where every kid is 5. And even that room is shutdown for 10 days! It makes no sense. I thought we’d get some relief when we get EUA for under 5 and can vaccinated are our 3yo but now it seems like it’s not going to make any difference. I REALLY don’t want to switch daycares, DC loves it there. But now I wonder if this is going to be a regular occurrence until they go to kindergarten, which is still 2 years away.

I would switch. Close contact quarantining should be identical to infected persons quaratine.

Wait, what? Infected people should be 5 days, then mask, right? Close contacts are generally not quarrantining anymore, except in (some) daycares.

A lot of daycares are still quarantining other kids in the class when there is a positive case. I’m just glad ours is now following the 5 days rather than the 10-14 days that it was until recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a daycare center in NoVA. Daycare’s policy is to shut down a classroom for 10 days upon a confirmed positive case (either student or staff) in that room. Policy is dictated by the county health department. Our daycare doesn’t require masks for children under 5, and there’s no test to stay option.
We just completed our 6th shutdown since Nov 2020 between my 2 kids. Each shutdown has been due to a positive staff member. None of those cases resulted in further spread within the school. That’s 60 days’ worth of juggling childcare and work between my DH and myself, cobbling together a mixture of leave, WFH, working late at night, etc. it is untenable.
Meanwhile, we had an RSV outbreak in both the infant and toddler classrooms last summer, yet no classroom shutdown was required.

I'm in Arlington and this is not the case at our school. They shut down twice, once in summer 2021 and once in January 2022. Though the snow that week really helped them there. They did pivot to asking everyone to test their children in the morning before bringing them to school. So if there is a positive case, they ask everyone to test before arriving and they ask for proof. If people don't do it, they have tests on hand and you can do it in the parking lot before sending them in.

I'd change schools if they are still shutting down a classroom for 10 days for every positive case.

Well, we aren’t in Arlington, and this seems to be the policy for the majority of the centers in our area, so I don’t really have an option to switch. I’m just hoping we can make it through this wave without another classroom closure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a daycare center in NoVA. Daycare’s policy is to shut down a classroom for 10 days upon a confirmed positive case (either student or staff) in that room. Policy is dictated by the county health department. Our daycare doesn’t require masks for children under 5, and there’s no test to stay option.
We just completed our 6th shutdown since Nov 2020 between my 2 kids. Each shutdown has been due to a positive staff member. None of those cases resulted in further spread within the school. That’s 60 days’ worth of juggling childcare and work between my DH and myself, cobbling together a mixture of leave, WFH, working late at night, etc. it is untenable.
Meanwhile, we had an RSV outbreak in both the infant and toddler classrooms last summer, yet no classroom shutdown was required.

I'm in Arlington and this is not the case at our school. They shut down twice, once in summer 2021 and once in January 2022. Though the snow that week really helped them there. They did pivot to asking everyone to test their children in the morning before bringing them to school. So if there is a positive case, they ask everyone to test before arriving and they ask for proof. If people don't do it, they have tests on hand and you can do it in the parking lot before sending them in.

I'd change schools if they are still shutting down a classroom for 10 days for every positive case.

Well, we aren’t in Arlington, and this seems to be the policy for the majority of the centers in our area, so I don’t really have an option to switch. I’m just hoping we can make it through this wave without another classroom closure.

I probably wouldn't switch either, because it is a huge hassle and childcare is not trivial to find. And I really hope the picture is changing quickly. And local areas seem to be similar to each other.

But just for a reality check, these policies are now EXTREMELY uncommon at a national level at this point - even in places that have historically been some of the most cautious throughout 2020/21. The CDC isn't leading the way here (which is a huge failure IMO), but local agencies in many locations are.

Hope you make it through this surge, and sorry you are still dealing with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, still stuck in 2020 at our daycare. I love it otherwise but this is getting ridiculous. OP, if your kid is still testing negative with no symptoms, hire a babysitter. Most people are "over" the pandemic now so you may find some takers.

Where are people finding these folks? It seems to be against care.com policy. I am trying anyway though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both of my children's daycare/preschool classrooms were completely shut down this week because of two separate covid cases. I will have two weeks of juggling childcare and work and no compensation for the closure.

WHY are we still doing this. Why has every segment of society essentially returned to normal except daycares? I understand that small children cannot get a vaccine but its been proven time and again that small children are not seriously affected by Covid. I have accepted that this is endemic, but why have daycares not.

What is your daycare's policy? Are they all living like this is 2020?

Yes!

They shutdown for 10 days when there's a case. Meanwhile, school age kid can still go to school when there's a case in his class.

Our daycare has gone totally bonkers- right now half of the classes are shut down for post it I’ve cases, including the “older” pre-K where every kid is 5. And even that room is shutdown for 10 days! It makes no sense. I thought we’d get some relief when we get EUA for under 5 and can vaccinated are our 3yo but now it seems like it’s not going to make any difference. I REALLY don’t want to switch daycares, DC loves it there. But now I wonder if this is going to be a regular occurrence until they go to kindergarten, which is still 2 years away.

I would switch. Close contact quarantining should be identical to infected persons quaratine.

Wait, what? Infected people should be 5 days, then mask, right? Close contacts are generally not quarrantining anymore, except in (some) daycares.

A lot of daycares are still quarantining other kids in the class when there is a positive case. I’m just glad ours is now following the 5 days rather than the 10-14 days that it was until recently.

Same at ours- currently 5, was previously 14. Yeah it would be annoying if it happened repeatedly but hasn’t been that much thankfully. And this week there was an outbreak in an older class, a couple of their younger siblings of the infected older kids are in my DC’s class. At least one of the siblings has now tested positive so I’m glad they were quarantined rather than in class with DC this week.

[Anonymous]

Our daycare is only quarantining a select group of "close contacts" for 5 days every case. Not the whole class. What that meant for us this past two weeks was DD was quarantined for 5 days, then on her third day back we were informed on three more cases in her class, I assume the kids that were not quarantined caught it from the first case. DD was not quarantined this time, but 2 days later she tested positive which means not only does she have to isolate for 10 days but DH and I tested positive as well. So I dunno, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't as far as quarantines are concerned.