Parents balance risks, needs as child care centers reopen

SEATTLE (AP) — It’s the day care dilemma central to rebooting American life amid the coronavirus pandemic.

With social distancing unlikely among babies and toddlers, parents of young children across the country are debating the health and safety risks inherent in child care centers, and weighing what few alternatives they have to balancing family and work.

“The virus is on my mind all the time with my kids,” said Demi Deshazior, a doctor’s assistant at a clinic in Miami, who is agonizing over whether it’s safe to put her newborn and 2-year-old son in day care. “Maybe it will work out and the kids will be healthy and safe but there is always that ’what if?”

Many states have issued new health and safety guidelines for licensed providers meant to help minimize infection risks. There are precautions being ordered or suggested for everything from nap time (space kids further apart) and meal times (no communal food sharing), to pick-up and drop-off (curbside). Soft toys that can’t be easily cleaned are out. Plexiglass to partition play areas are in.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also urging child care providers to have caretakers wear masks and other personal protective equipment, clean and sanitize all surfaces more vigilantly, and screen kids and teachers with temperature checks.

And though young children have largely been spared of the worst of COVID-19, a rare and serious inflammatory condition in children that’s linked to the coronavirus has reinforced the anxiety many parents have because so much is uncertain about the virus.

Dr. Danette Glassy, an American Academy of Pediatrics expert who has helped set the national health and safety standards for child care and early education programs, said parents must take stock of the specific risk factors in their family, such as...