Covid NSW: Warning for Sydney childcare centres
There is growing concern about the impact of the Delta coronavirus strain on young children amid Sydney's worsening Covid outbreak.
The state's Chief Health Officer, Dr Kerry Chant, has urged parents to keep their young children at home if possible.
"We are seeing a number of childcare centre outbreaks," she told reporters on Wednesday.
"If you can keep your children home safely please do so."
The directive highlights the uneven impact of the pandemic in Australia's largest city as essential workers in Covid hotspots in southwest Sydney are simply unable to work from home with their children.
The higher case load in young children reflects what health systems have seen overseas in countries where the Delta variant has run wild.
"We are seeing a number of cases in childcare centres," Dr Chant reiterated, citing the particular characteristic of the Delta strain.
"Often introduced through the staff or the children and the children can in many ways transmit between themselves. We are seeing with this form of the virus more cases in childcare centres," she said.
No clear date for return to NSW classrooms
In the early days of the pandemic, Australia's federal health authorities repeatedly stressed that "schools were safe" on the belief children were not major carriers of the virus – a mantra health experts say no longer holds water.
For now, it is unclear when students in Greater Sydney might head back to school.
NSW education minister Sarah Mitchell couldn't give a date for when most students could return to classrooms, a parliamentary inquiry was told on Wednesday.
All school assessments and trial HSC exams will still take place remotely, and no student from the eight council Covid-19 hotspot areas will be permitted to attend classes, as was indicated earlier.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Wednesday it was still premature to say for certain whether high vaccination rates would mean more students could return by October.
Labor's Courtney Houssos said parents were increasingly stressed by the lack of certainty around dates.
"Is it going to be another month? Is it going to be until October? Is it going to be until the end of the year? Surely you can give (parents) more indication than 'wait until the 28 August' and 'we're having conversations'," Ms Houssos asked.
"We will be in a position to tell parents what to expect within the coming weeks," Ms Mitchell said.
The education minister stressed she had been advocating for students to return to classrooms as soon as safely possible.
with AAP
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