[relaytheurgency]

I don't think the opinion about the source is appropriate on Hacker News, but I can concur the child care problem is real and difficult.

My child's classroom closed for a week because of a positive case. My child tested negative, so she can still potentially get sick which would cause _another_ closure plus she would have to quarantine for 10 days. There are 8 kids in the classroom, so I could be looking at losing 7*5+10 days of child care before this is over.

[D13Fd]

Yes, the child care problem is huge. My kids' daycare is short-staffed due to staff being out sick, which means they have to combine the classrooms at times. Then when one child in a combined classroom tests positive for COVID, all of those kids--and all of the teachers--are sent home for the isolation period. This results in more short-staffing and more combined classrooms, which leads to even more opportunities for COVID exposure.

It's a cascading failure, and it doesn't stop there. The parents end up watching their own kids and have to call out of work themselves (or work remotely at greatly reduced capacity).

[toomuchtodo]

It's a policy failure. Government should've paid a parent to stay home and provide childcare for their kids until under 5s could be vaccinated, instead of what we have now, which is a broken, dysfunctional childcare system attempting to keep itself together (and failing, both due to wages being too low to make the work worthwhile, spread of COVID, etc).

I don't know how you convince anyone in the current environment to be a childcare provider or teacher, when there are robust alternative employment options available that pay more for a better work environment.

[nradov]

The notion of closing a whole classroom due to a single positive case is ridiculous and counterproductive. We're all going to be exposed occasionally regardless of what protective measures we take. Fortunately CDC data clearly shows that on average COVID-19 is less dangerous to children than other common viruses like RSV.

And no, closing classrooms isn't necessary to protect teachers. They've been vaccinated for months now, and are free to wear PPE if they choose.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00443.asp