As schools, businesses, governments and most other venues go dark in the effort to restrict the pandemic, state officials are allowing child care centers to remain open, in an effort to support essential workers who can’t leave their children otherwise.
While some facilities have closed on their own, state and local officials have stopped short of ordering the closure of early child care centers, daycare sites and preschool, focusing instead on back up child care for doctors, nurses, first responders and other essential workers, such as — suddenly — grocers and delivery drivers. It has been a tough choice: The emergency response to coronavirus is relying on humans refraining from contact, and if there is one aspect of child care that is a constant, it is touching.
