Updated at 7:59 p.m.
Governor Charlie Baker ordered all Massachusetts early education and family child care providers to close in five days. They'll be replaced by emergency centers focusing on the needs of families on the front line of coronavirus response.
Baker, who unveiled the order Wednesday as he outlined new small business tax relief and public health regulatory changes prompted by the outbreak, said the state will create a process to open exempt child care centers.
All other early education facilities must close effective March 23.
Parents who are involved in emergency-related work or medical care will be prioritized for coverage from the interim centers, as will vulnerable children and other workers who cannot get time off.
"This will provide priority access for families of emergency personnel, medical staff and others critical to fighting the COVID-19 outbreak," Baker said at a press conference. "Volunteers, teachers and staff from some child care programs have already reached out to the department to say that they are ready and willing to continue providing care, which will be a relief to many of the parents who are working day and night to combat COVID-19."
The state Department of Early Education and Care will work to ensure every part of the state has access to the emergency programs, Baker said. Emergency centers can be existing licensed programs or new facilities within or near medical centers.
Officials have been working in recent days to determine which sites will best support emergency child care centers and help the most parents.
The governor had excluded daycares and preschools from an earlier order that took effect Tuesday requiring public and private K-12 schools to close for three weeks. But those services now have five more days to keep running before mandatory closures begin.
Providers that must close under the order will continue to receive their regular subsidy payments from the state to ensure they can reopen once the state of emergency Baker declared last week is lifted.
Darlene Barbeau owns a daycare center in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, which had already closed before the governor's order. She said of the 35 children enrolled, she receives money from the state for four of them, which she says will help some.
But "I still have to pay rent on this building, regardless of whether I'm using it or not, because, you know, I have a lease," Barbeau said. "I cannot get unemployment because I am self-employed, so I guess I'm just going to have to deal with it. "
Other providers who rely more heavily on the subsidy will fare better. Tabitha Desplaines, director of New Beginnings in Springfield, said having the state money coming in will allow them to re-open when the time comes.
"Our center is 98% subsidized care, so it's going to definitely help us — it's how we pay our bills," she said. "But it's going to help the parents, too, because now nobody needs to worry about — if they're out of a job right now, they don't need to worry about all that. Their subsidy will just continue to happen."
Wednesday's announcement was yet another extension of the shutdowns in public life that have become commonplace over the past two weeks as the globe grapples with a pandemic. The same day, the number of confirmed cases in Massachusetts rose to 256.
On Wednesday, as unemployment claims in Massachusetts spiked, Baker also signed an aid bill that the legislature sped through the branches. The new law waives the one-week waiting period to access unemployment benefits for any person separated from work amid the coronavirus outbreak.
He took several other steps that he said would help blunt the economic impact of the pandemic as well, including a postponement of tax bills for small hospitality and restaurant businesses.
Any Massachusetts business that paid less than $150,000 in 2019 sales plus meals or sales plus room occupancy taxes will not need to pay March, April and May taxes until June 20, and penalties and interests will not apply to that delay.
Those rules will take effect as Department of Revenue emergency regulations by Friday, Baker said in his press conference.
Baker also signed an emergency order that extends occupational or professional licenses in good standing 90 days to prevent renewal disruption amid the crisis.
The administration rolled out three more public health orders Wednesday that allow physician assistants who previously worked on elective surgeries to conduct more health care work, allow pharmacists to administer opioid use disorder medication to free up more nurses, and require local boards of health to disclose addresses of COVID-19 patients to an area's top emergency official for use in responding to emergency calls.
Baker, Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel reiterated the importance of social distancing — even amid a time that Sudders acknowledged is supercharged with stress and anxiety — during Wednesday's press conference,
Younger people in good health or those with mild symptoms, Bharel said, can pass the virus onto those more vulnerable to its effects.
"If we ignore the guidelines on social distancing, we will be putting ourselves and everyone else at a much higher risk," she said. "Social distancing allows us time to maintain our health care system and preserve it for those who need it most."
Sudders added later in the press conference that the state may explore using college dormitories — many of which are vacant after schools sent students home for the semester as a precaution — as short-term housing for health care workers.
Testing capacity in Massachusetts increased this week when the state public health laboratory automated some processes, giving it the ability to test up to 400 patients per day, and with several commercial laboratories supplementing that effort.
With Washington appearing poised to act on another federal aid package, Baker said he has had conversations with more than 40 other governors in recent days and that the top issues for almost all are the availability of personal protective equipment and swabs to test for the virus.
The governor also said again that leaders may need to tap into the state's $3.5 billion savings account to keep operations afloat, particularly after the House's budget chief said it was unlikely the branch would be able to complete its spending bill deliberations in April as is tradition.
"I don't think anybody's made a decision at this point with respect to how that might get deployed or how much of it might get deployed or when it might get used, but I think all of us are certainly aware the economy's going to take a big hit and tax revenues are going to take a big hit," Baker said, adding that he's having "literally daily discussions" with Ways and Means committees in both branches and his administration's financial department.
"At the end of the day, what we'll do is everything we can to make sure we provide the support that we need to provide around services, that the command center and the Department of Public Health do what they need to do to work with the health care community to anticipate the surge we all believe is coming," Baker said.
Adam Frenier contributed to this report.
