Child-care workers ‘terrified’

Child-care workers are “terrified” amid record-breaking COVID-19 case spikes this week.

“It's really difficult,” said Margot Nickerson, an early childhood educator at St. Joseph's Children Centre in Halifax.

Nova Scotia reported 227 new COVID-19 cases Friday and another 200 cases that are being investigated. The active case count now exceeds 1,400.

“When you look at other situations where people are working in close contact for such periods of time in their day with other large groups of people, those people are usually immunized,” Nickerson said in an interview after the Friday afternoon COVID-19 briefing.

“They're health-care workers or long-term-care workers, people that probably got immunized in the first wave first round of immunizations in the province.”

The province has rejected priority COVID-19 vaccination for child-care staff so unless they're in the eligible age groups, they have no protection except personal protective equipment against the virus.

CASES AT 16 DAYCARES

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development said Friday there have been cases at 16 Nova Scotia daycares out of 300.

Spokeswoman Violet Macleod couldn't provide a specific case number.

“When there is a case of COVID connected to a centre, every family and staff member is notified by public health,” she said in an email.

“Due to the numbers and how parents interact with centres, we can be confident that everyone is communicated with. Those who need to know about a case are quickly informed. The Department then works with Public Health and the centre on safety measures, supports and closures if required by Public Health. If there was a need for a broader public notification or a public list, Public Health would make that determination.”

A Halifax child-care centre director, who didn't want to be identified, said the situation was worrisome.

“The staff are certainly feeling very uneasy and they're sharing lots of information about the other places that are having trouble,” she said. “In the previous week the staff were feeling pretty confident, although this week, as the days go on, they're not feeling as confident.”

On the positive side, the director said her centre is operating at about 25 per cent capacity because many parents are withdrawing their kids from care.

“We've had no positive tests in our centre with our families that we know of,” although one of her staff members is awaiting test results because they were at a potential exposure site.

“Really we're just trying to take each day one day at a time and just watching for the updates.”

LACK OF TRUST

Nickerson said there should be more communication with the public about COVID-19 cases at daycares.

She's heard that a number of cases at different daycares were all connected to one facility.

“There was no notification out of the centre so the rest of the community in close proximity to each other didn't know,” she said.

“Yes they should be telling people so that we can make more informed decisions, the public can make more informed decisions about their health and safety, for sure. And it makes early childhood educators fearful, they're starting to lose their trust, they don't know if they're hearing the complete truth (from public health).”

The Education Department keeps a running tally of schools that have reported COVID-19 cases but no information about specific daycares is released.

Macleod said public schools require broader public notification because they are much larger than a daycare or childcare centre “and there are many more families and staff who require notification, and we need to ensure they all receive notification, especially in the case of a school closure.”

CAPACITY REDUCTIONS

Nickerson, who is president of CUPE 4745, which represents early childhood educators in HRM, said she anticipates "strong conversations" this week with the Education Department considering the emergency situation with COVID-19.

She said the province should have shut down individual daycares when cases first started to spike and sites for emergency child care isolated from the community set up.

That would have eliminated the risks faced by educators who mostly travel to work on buses and the risks associated with parents bringing their children in from various locations in HRM or even outside the municipality, she said.

After that didn't happen, child care advocates pushed for a 50 per cent cap on the centre's total number and on the number of children in any space within the centre.

The province recently agreed to cap capacity at 60 per cent for the entire centre but there is no cap on the number of kids in particular rooms or cohorts. As a result, Nickerson said, there are spaces within centres in Nova Scotia that are at 100 per cent capacity, usually with toddlers and infants with whom there can be no social distancing,

“I certainly think if the numbers rise at the same rate they're rising now, if you look at modelling, if that starts to happen in this province I can't see how they're going to continue to keep each child-care centre open. I think they're going to have to start thinking about how they're providing child care for emergency workers in a different way.”