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“This will provide priority access for families of emergency personnel, medical staff, and others critical to fighting the COVID-19 outbreak,” he said.
“Vulnerable children will also receive priority,” he said. And he said, “We’ll work hard to make space for people who must go to work but aren’t necessarily emergency personnel.”
“These emergency child care programs will be the only ones allowed to operate during this state of emergency,” he said. He said state officials were working to make sure there is sufficient access to the child care in every region of the state.
He also said child care providers would continue to receive child care subsidy payments from the state in order to ensure that the programs will be able to reopen once the crisis is over.
“There’s much to do, but we’re grateful for everybody’s commitment to their fellow citizens. And we give everyone our word that we will devote everything we’ve got to defeating this," Baker said.
The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care licenses about 9,000 child care programs, residential facilities, and foster care and adoption placement agencies that serve up to 230,000 children – including 55,000 children from low-income or at-risk families whose care is subsidized by the state.
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The decision threw another curve ball to working families who are trying to weather the statewide closure of schools that already upended the daily schedules of more than 1 million Massachusetts children. But the administration had been fielding increasing concerns from child care workers that their health was not being protected against children who may be asymptomatic but carrying the COVID-19 virus.
In recent days, nearly 24,000 child care workers had signed a petition urging the state to shut down.
“We have heard lengthy conversations about college and university response plans to COVID-19, but it is frustrating and shocking that child care programs, both centers and family child care, have been overlooked in efforts to keep our communities safe,” the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children, which represents early educators, said in a separate statement earlier this week.
At the State House news conference, Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders also warned of the mental toll being taken by the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic.
“It’s important during this time to take care of yourself. Your friends and your family can help you cope with stress. Please support yourself and one another and, particularly, the people you care about,” she said.
She advised people to, among other things, take a break from the news, eat healthy, exercise, get enough sleep, avoid alcohol and drugs, and try to do activities they enjoy.
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Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel stressed the continued importance of social distancing, even among young and healthy people to stem the spread of the virus.
“You can truly impact how fast and how far this disease spreads in our community,” she said.
Earlier Wednesday afternoon, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh stressed during a news conference that the city currently has no plans to issue a shelter-in-place order, but he said that that could change.
“Obviously, if situations change, we will update the public and let them know,” Walsh said. “As of right now, that is not a situation that I think we can talk about.” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday that such an order was possible there, while an order is in place for eight counties in Northern California.
Asked what would prompt a shelter-in-place order, Walsh said “I don’t think it’s a question of how bad it gets” but rather determining the “right time” for such an order if it becomes necessary.
He said city officials were monitoring the data on positive cases.
“I’m not saying that [sheltering in place] will never be a potential option,” Walsh said, pointing the highly fluid nature of the pandemic. “We could be standing here in four hours having a very different conversation.”
Walsh also gave an update on the city’s response to the coronavirus, detailing efforts to feed low-income children, to help the elderly, and to erect tents to allow for isolation of homeless people who are suspected of being infected.
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“The key goal is to protect the capacity of our hospitals so we can handle the peak of the crisis,” he said. “Social distancing is a must… The more we can do that, the more we can potentially prevent the spread, the wide spread of the virus,” he said.
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted daily life and hammered economies across the country and the world.
In Massachusetts, hospitals are seeing a rising number of suspected coronavirus patients, an ominous indication that the pandemic may be spreading in the region at a clip more rapid than suggested by official state numbers.
A national shortage of specialized swabs and other supplies has also forced Massachusetts hospitals to ration tests for the coronavirus.
No one has died in the state from the disease. But officials in neighboring Connecticut on Wednesday announced the state’s first death of a patient from the coronavirus. The patient, a man in his 80s, had recently been admitted to Danbury Hospital. He had been a resident of an assisted living facility in Ridgefield.
The United States has recorded more than 6,500 cases and at least 116 deaths from the virus, almost half of them in Washington state, where dozens of residents from a suburban Seattle nursing home have died.
Ordinary life in Massachusetts has come to a standstill as officials have issued sweeping restrictions to slow the spread of the potentially deadly disease. The goal is to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by a flood of patients with serious illnesses.
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The virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, for most people, but severe illness is more likely in the elderly and people with existing health problems.
In Washington, President Trump announced Wednesday that he would invoke a federal provision that allows the government to marshal the private sector in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
He also said he would expand the nation’s testing capacity and deploy a Navy hospital ship to New York City, which is rapidly becoming the epicenter of the pandemic. A second ship will be deployed to the West Coast.
Material from Globe wire services and previous Globe stories was used in this report.
Martin finucane can be reached at martin.finucane@globe.com Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe. Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at Stephanie.Ebbert@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @StephanieEbbert
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March 19, 2020 at 03:02AM
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Baker says most child care centers to close due to coronavirus; case tally rises to 256 - The Boston Globe
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