After News10NBC report on daycare quarantines, state lawmaker asked NYS to change the rules

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Thursday, News10NBC told you how children in daycares still have to quarantine if just one child in the room tests positive for COVID. Every child in quarantine usually means a parent out of work.

Friday, New York State Assemblywoman Jen Lunsford ask the state health department to change the rule.

Brean: “Are you hearing from parents of children in daycares and child care centers?”

Assemblywoman Jen Lunsford, (D) NYS Assembly: “Nonstop.”

Brean: “And what are they saying?”

JL: “We have been hearing from parents not just outside of our office but inside our office for months.”

Lunsford wrote the state health department asking that it change it’s child care quarantine rules to match the CDC guidelines.

In her letter, Lunsford called the current rules “illogical inconsistency.”

“I’m hearing from some parents who have lost over a month of work,” she said “One parent told me they lost 70 days of work.”

Lunsford said state health is meeting with the Office of Children and Family Services, the state agency that oversees child care.
Thursday I took you to the Children’s Center of Brighton where at least one class is missing half of it’s children because they’re in quarantine.

“A five-year-old who is in kindergarten can be in a classroom next to a pre-school classroom and five-year-olds don’t need to quarantine but our pre-school children do need to quarantine,” owner Susan Cinquino said. “It doesn’t make sense and it is hard to explain this to our families and hard for us to understand it at this point in time with COVID.”

OCFS told me it is reviewing covid policies.

Assemblywoman Lunsford told me she hopes the state makes the change next week.