Gov. J.B. Prtizer announced Friday afternoon 5,500 child care facilities across Illinois will be able to reopen next week.
“Following the guidance, all of the 5,500 child care providers who are not currently operating are being asked to reopen when their community moves into Phase three of the ‘Restore Illinois’ plan.” The Governor announced.
The Governor announced today under the reopening plan, children will be limited to 10 per classroom.
“For the first four weeks they are open, providers will be able to serve no more than 10 children per classroom.” Gov. Pritzker said Friday afternoon. “Once they have provided care safely for four weeks and have gotten accustom to the new health, social distancing, and sanitation routines’, they will be able to expand to larger group sizes. Though not yet their fully licensed capacity.”
As of this week, only 15% of state child care facilities have been reopened for essential workers providing emergency service throughout the state.
“We can’t have a conversation about going back to work without talking about child care – anything else leaves a large portion of the workforce, especially women who too often bear a disproportionate burden, without any way to move forward while caring for their kids,” said Governor Pritzker. “Illinois must take a cautious approach that appropriately balances the need to greatly expand child care with the need to lessen the risk of spreading the coronavirus.”
There will be no restrictions on which families can use child care in Phases 3 and 4. As of 2017, Illinois’ Child Care facilities could house over 420,000 children at full capacity.
Today, IDPH reoported 2,758 new cases of COVID-19, including 110 new deaths. To date there have now been 105,444 cases including 4,715 deaths across 100 counties in Illinois.
