New York Times
In a report of U.S. child care facilities released on Sept. 24, Child Care Aware of America, a nonprofit advocacy group for providers, found that nationwide, 35 percent of nonresidential child care centers and 21 percent of in-home child care facilities that had been open before the pandemic had closed by July.
According to the largest study of its kind, published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers from Yale and Columbia surveyed more than 57,000 child care providers across 50 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico between May and June. They found no relationship between working in day cares and contracting or being hospitalized for Covid-19, regardless of race, ethnicity or other factors.
“Child care providers who reported to work during the first three months of the pandemic were no more likely to contract Covid-19 than those who did not report to work,” said Walter Gilliam, a psychologist and early childhood and education policy researcher at the Yale Child Study Center, who led the study. Most facilities in the study followed careful safety protocols.
But, he added, “If the transmission rate is high in your community, of course it’s going to get into your child care program.”
