The developing issue- COVID-19

[bright sparks]

It just makes me angry that we are now considered essential workers without the benefits of licensed childcare employees. The Government barely recognized us before except to pass regulations. Now the Province of Ontario expects us to operate as essential businesses, SERIOUSLY??!!!

The list was put together only to specify which businesses are allowed to operate at this time and the category they highlight them as are "essential services". That designation is not relative to the childcare industry specifically when it comes to licensed or unlicensed. Nobody and nowhere is the government telling you that you are expected to operate. This was put into place to force closures of certain high risk unnecessary businesses.

This has nothing to do with licensing or regulations and everything to do with risk factors. Home daycares are at a much lower risk than centres due to capacity. If we are all social distancing and independent home daycare providers are putting policies in place for sickness and expectations they have of their current families then there is a lower risk to daycare kids than when we go to the grocery store without them because in most cases it is a much more intimate and controlled circle of people.

I urge people to calm down, it is stressful beyond belief, but I am grateful that we are listed as essential because if my daycare closes it will be my call not a forced closure from them. Also reality check, if you close now, when do you reopen? Closing for 2 weeks while your daycare families are not locked down may reduce exposure for yourself, but after two weeks with the province and country still operational, you just open up the risk again so more realistically daycares could be closed for a month or two which is a far greater hardship financially for us and our daycare families and doesn't really change the risk to our particular set of circumstances.

Don't misunderstand me for being someone who is not putting safety first, but if your daycare families are already social distancing, working from home or in an environment where separation is enforced and taken seriously, and those families do not have a vulnerable person living with them and they are not visiting anyone or having visitors, then the most exposure to a person those kids have is the provider and the people living under their roof.

I have an amended policy that covers COVID-19 and it was overseen by a doctor working out of an acute centre in Hamilton,ON. She expressed that she sees no major risk factors in my daycare staying open at this time and I have spoken in great detail to all my families to be clear on their movements. It is more a question of ethics than Health and Safety. If I had families whose members worked in the public sectors with regular uncontrolled exposure to massive amounts of people then I would likely be making different choices, but consider the facts with a clear head, not with anxiety and stress and emotion at the forefront because then our choices may be misguided and out of panic which doesn't help anyone.

It has taken me a while to get to this resolve, but there is nobody to be angry with. I worked 2 full time jobs 2 weeks ago and I have lost one of those losing a $1000 PER WEEK!!! I know the stress of this and it has taken me that long to chill out and stop losing my mind.

It is awful for everyone but right now I am focusing on reducing my outgoings, being resourceful with freezer meal prep, catching up on household chores and jobs around the house and focusing on how fortunate I am to be able to work, still have a job and be in a position to make the best choices for my family, daycare families and my business.