More than 100 COVID-19 closures at daycares across N.L. in the past 3 weeks

Frustrated by repeated daycare closures, some parents and daycare providers want the government to spend more time on COVID-19 protocols for the province's youngest children.

In the past three weeks, 111 daycare centres have been fully closed due to COVID-19 protocols and 41 daycares have been partially closed — essentially, operating with reduced capacity — according to data from the provincial government.

More than half of the closures have affected the St. John's region, including Happy Times Preschool in St. John's, which shut its doors for 14 days due to COVID-19 earlier this year.

We felt like we were thrown to the wolves​​​​​.- Gail Sullivan

When the daycare centre's owner, Gail Sullivan, contacted Public Health, she said, they told her to close for two weeks, but when she called provincial health line 811 she was told she had to close for only five days.

Sullivan said the confusion makes it seem as though preschool children have been forgotten as the province made plans for school-age kids.

"We felt like we were thrown to the wolves, totally negated and left out, left out to tread water for ourselves," said Sullivan.

Closures vary, depend on circumstance

On Jan. 13, the government recorded 37 full daycare closures and 14 partial closures for the week, with 30 of them in the metro region, according to numbers provided by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

The following week, 53 daycare centres were fully closed and nine were partially closed, with 42 closures in the metro region. On Thursday, the government said there were 21 full closures and 18 partial closures, with 24 of those in the metro region.

• Parents frustrated by repeated daycare closures in N.L. want review of COVID-19 policy

The department says the stats reflect a "point in time" as the government receives daycare closure data every Thursday. A statement provided Thursday said the length of closures "can vary depending on circumstances, and not all closures are necessarily long term." 

Some of the closures, especially the partial ones, may be due to staff self-isolating while they wait for COVID-19 test results and some centres may reopen after a day or two once testing rules out positive cases, the statement said.

Sullivan said daycares have been open at full capacity since the beginning of January, even while schools were closed, but she said they still were not considered for rapid testing until after the province announced the tests would be used in the school system. 

"We were the guinea pigs, I think, for the Department of Education to open up the schools.… That's how we feel," she said.

"We are part of the education system, we are birth to five years, before kids start school, and it's about time the government recognizes that and starts giving us the proper help that we need and funding that we need to provide quality child care."

Sullivan is calling on daycare providers to band together to start to get their voices heard by the provincial government.

She has started a group on Facebook called N.L. Childcare Licensees.

"We have no one speaking for us and I think that's the problem," she said. "Our demographic group is smaller than schools, but it is still important." 

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