I’m going to be talking today about the crucial issue of childcare, something so many families need and are concerned about. It's been really, really tough for parents. So, bringing back childcare is crucial. During this crisis, there's been a very limited amount of childcare – 125 childcare programs have been up and running since April for essential workers' kids, but for everyone else, it's been a struggle.
Today, the New York City Board of Health will be considering a plan to reopen childcare centers across the five boroughs next week. This is over 3,000 childcare centers that could come online right away. The Board of Health is looking at how to do this properly, how to do it safely. One of the things we see is that the data consistently shows a low infection rate among children when it comes to the coronavirus.
This is important because we want parents to have good choices for childcare, safe choices to avoid the kinds of situations that might not be as safe, it might be unregulated. We want parents to know that the best quality childcare will be there for them. So, strict safety requirements will be in place. There'll be real social distancing requirements as well, no more than 15 kids in a room. All kids, all staff will be required to wear face coverings. There'll be daily health screenings, regular cleanings, constantly – very careful regulation of any items that kids might use in common. So, for example, limited sharing of toys. We need to bring back childcare quickly and safely, and that's what we are working on as we speak.
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