Do Daycare Facilities Remain Open During A Lockdown?

Ontario’s child-care centres were allowed to reopen in June 2020 after being ordered closed during the early months of the pandemic. Since then, there have been closures at 510 facilities, with about 25% of those closures occurring within the past 14 days. The purpose of a “lockdown” is to keep children and staff inside the building, secured in a classroom or other safe area away from windows and doors. In Connecticut, of the 164 providers who responded, 70 are completely closed.

Child care centers improvised during the pandemic, scrambling to stay open with razor-thin budgets and little government guidance. The government set aside $30 million to help child care centres make up for losses incurred during the first lockdown when centers were told to close. Today, with over a thousand active centers, there is a pressing need for evidence-based scrutiny of plans to re-open childcare centres during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Remote education only is currently provided for primary and secondary school pupils. As lockdown stretches on, and COVID cases in my area continue to rise, there is one question I’ve been grappling with: Should I continue to provide early childhood education and care for children? Childcare responsibilities during lockdown are not being shared equally between working parents, according to psychologists at the University of Sussex.

Some daycare centers never closed, remaining open for children of doctors and nurses, grocery store clerks, postal workers, and other professionals. This guidance is for providers registered with Ofsted and childminders registered with childminder agencies for children of all ages.