Around 30 young children had already arrived on July 13 for their day at the UNM Children’s Campus when Daniela Baca learned that someone who visited the medium had tested positive for COVID-19.
In less than an hour, the facility had emptied and she had contacted the state fitness department. “We had to avoid accepting children,” he says. “We change gears to make sure families know what’s going on.”
By noon, Baca had shifted his purpose from caring for youth to paintings with a pandemic response team made up of staff from various state agencies. The team tested all staff and youth who came into contact with the infected user with the virus, deflating each and every internal and external square centimeter. They also tried to locate who the inflamed user may have come in contact with to prevent it from spreading to other locations.
The UNM children’s campus reopened nine days later and the virus had spread to youth or additional staff.
As the pandemic grew in mid-March and state public physical fitness orders led to a widespread shift from the workplace to domestic work, the state questioned how to safely care for young people in a must-have staff and to young people in state care. The state has issued safety requirements that establishments that care about youth adhere to remain open. In the end, 619 of the 975 centers, family circle houses, and organizational houses created security protocol plans and remained open. Since then, when the positive effects of the controls caused a shutdown, the government has discovered very little transmission.
Since March, about 14% of open day care centers in New Mexico have had a staff member, or in rare cases, a child, tested positive, said Elizabeth Groginsky, secretary of the Department of Education and Child Care. early childhood, in an interview. She said positive check returns elicit an immediate reaction procedure that includes touch tracing to identify each and every child who has interacted with the user who tested positive.
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As a result, more than 1,470 children have been tested, and in almost all cases the virus has been limited to the initial positive case, in places basically occupied by young and very young children.
The low transmission in child care settings can be attributed to the state’s immediate response protocol and practices, said Janis Gonzales, medical director of the Department of Health’s Office of Family Health.
“One of the things that has helped keep transmission rates low is the reunification protocol, so that a positive user does not disclose the whole medium but only to other people in their small group,” Gonzales said.
In addition to the fact that young people stay with small teams on the day, other practices come with smaller classrooms, with the screening of young people and staff when arriving at an institution, social distance, hygiene practices and mask dressing through adults and young people.
Some intermediates use the “friendly app” and incorporate the mask at recess to standardize the use of the mask for children. An intermediary uses parent contracts to adhere to COVID safety practices to encourage trust and reinforce safety.
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Most of the positive tests that triggered immediate reaction effort were in adults, Groginsky said. “In some of those cases, we have found that young people are positive, we just don’t know if it has been passed down from instructor to child.” she said, “But it’s not like all the little kids who have been in the classroom with the instructors have tested positive.”
When the pandemic first struck, the Centraide Santa Fe Early Learning Center in Kaune closed as enrollment dropped dramatically. This allowed time to prepare the facility for a new normal, by making adjustments to meet state guidelines, said Kathrine Freeman, director of the center.
Before reopening in June, larger study rooms were created for up to 10 young people. Six learning environments have been created. It reduced the capacity from 104 young people to 64, developed sanitation plans and learning plans that incorporated social distancing. Parents cannot enter the premises. Children are left outdoors where they meet a staff member who accompanies them inside the building for a medical examination before entering the “bubble” of their classroom.
And the neat middle mask for everyone in the building, adding youth when it reopened in June.
It turned out that young children understood the mask requirement much more than some adults.
“The first two weeks were a bit of an adjustment, after that they enjoyed it. They are aware of the social contract for themselves and for everyone else, ”Freeman said. “Masks are not a political factor for 3- and 4-year-olds. Nor do they pose a risk to your freedom or anything else.
Back at the UNM Children’s Center in Albuquerque, masks are now incorporated into recess.
“One of the kids not only brought his regular cloth mask, he also brought his Darth Vader mask for the day. Baca said. “The kids enjoyed it, if he had enough of that, he had the cloth mask but he had his mask that he enjoyed during the day.
Both of these conveniences inspire the type of application of young people who remove or watch the mask removed.
Freeman said the children have even started to enforce their mask needs with each other. “If someone wears the mask, use key words to help them realize they want to put the mask on or put it back on,” Freeman said. “Something like, ‘Let’s keep everyone safe, are you going to put your mask on? “We paint a lot with language or words. We don’t want anyone to be attacked for this.”
A parent agreement in Kaune requires adults to report to the facility if they have contacted who tested positive for COVID and agree to restrict potential exposure as productively as possible.
Freeman said he agreed with social distancing, masks and “leaving the house as little as possible.” We liked that we all had social contracts.
Collaboration of all stakeholders in the most productive security practices to effectively combat exposure has led to increased trust, he said. “Our parents at the moment are much less anxious. They accept as true the security protocols we have in place and are convinced that we too are too careful to enforce them properly. “
But if a positive case emerges in downtown Santa Fe, Freeman can take advantage of the joy of UNM’s child care center and other conveniences that have learned immediate reaction protocols.
“I think you can put things on paper and until you do, you do not see the things that can be changed, for the maximum component I would call it a success,” said Baca about the closure of nine days at UNM. “The feedback we got from parents and staff that they felt that he had been treated in a very calm and transparent way, that they thought about it in the best way and that is what we can ask for.”
Shaun Griswold writes for New Mexico In Depth. This story was first published on nmindepth.com