Not all day care centers around Norway will be ready or even willing to reopen on Monday. The government has approved the reopenings and is urging parents to send their small children, but not all meet new anti-infection standards yet and some parents are worried.
Day care personnel have been working feverishly to sanitize and reorganize their center’s oeprations since they were closed a month ago as part of Corona virus containment measures. New rules call, for example, for the children to be separated into groups, with one adult for every three children under age three, and six children per adult for those aged three to six.
The groups are to be kept apart, to better control contact among the children. Playgrounds are to be divided into zones, as much time as possible is to be spent outdoors, parents will not be allowed inside the day care centers and several won’t be serving meals, with parents asked to send lunch and snack packs with their children.
Oslo officials confirmed to newspaper VG that several of its day care centers won’t be ready to open until Tuesday at the earliest. Parents will receive information directly from their child’s day care center when it will open.
Increasing numbers of parents are claiming they don’t want to send their children back to day care just yet. Government officials and child advocates are disappointed, claiming the day care centers will be safe and important for their child’s development. They’re also urging parents to “pay attention to facts, not fear.”
newsinenglish.no staff
