The staff and children in preschools and childcare aren't protected like in schools.
By late January, more than 400 early learning centers were closed across the country due to the Omicron wave, and many more were running at reduced capacity. Anxiety about kids' safety is leading many parents not to send their children to preschool or childcare. Absence rates in some large providers of early childhood education and care were reportedly as high as 43% by late January compared to about 10% in November and December.
Most kids across the country went back to school this week with various plans in place in different states to monitor and contain COVID infections. Together with mitigation measures such as masks and effective ventilation, schools in New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT, for instance, are providing free rapid antigen tests to families so students and staff can be tested several times a week to monitor any infections.
While the provision of RATs for preschool and childcare staff and similar testing plans are in place in NSW, Victoria, and South Australia, this is not the case for the children in their care. This may be because RATs aren't as effective in detecting infections in children as in adults. A study of the sensitivity of RATs in children found the tests failed to accurately detect infection in 36% of infected children. If the child was infected but had no symptoms, RATs failed to detect this in 44% of cases.
Other states' decisions not to require regular RATs for staff may be due to lower case numbers. For instance, on February 1, NSW had over 12,000 new cases while Western Australia had 24. Other mitigation measures in place at schools are more difficult to implement in early learning settings.
No vaccine is available for preschool and childcare-aged children and masks are not recommended for children under two years old. There is a national framework for managing COVID in schools and childcare settings. Early childhood services and schools must respond based on public health advice and with support from public health authorities where required. However, at the moment plans to prevent transmission in childcare settings are being left to states and territories, and the approaches are at times fragmented.
