In anticipation of the removal of COVID self-isolation rules on 14 October 2022

As early childhood education and care services would have heard, the Federal, State and Territory governments agreed to remove the self-isolation rule if they contract COVID-19 beginning Friday, 14 October 2022.

ACA NSW did formally request the NSW Department of Education to provide clarity and advice on how the NSW Regulatory Authority expects early childhood education and care services to implement this change in public health requirements while COVID remains an infectious disease.

The NSW Department of Education's Sector Update (dated 11 October 2022) provided the following:

• "NSW Health strongly recommends people who are sick or have tested positive to COVID-19 stay home until their symptoms have gone. To support services, the department will provide additional supplies of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) in the coming weeks, and these can be distributed to both staff and families to identify cases of COVID-19 in your community quickly. Further information, including recommendations in quantities, will be provided as soon as possible. 
• Until 14 October [2022], you must continue to self-isolate if you test positive for COVID-19. Household and close contacts must follow the guidelines. 
• Services should continue to evaluate what is most appropriate for their unique circumstances, while remaining compliant with the National Regulations on taking reasonable steps to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and notifying parents of positive cases."

Services would be aware that Regulation 168(2)(c) and Regulation 88 obligate services to take reasonable steps to address infectious diseases. The NSW Work Health and Safey's Regulation 35 also places similar importance to manage relevant risks.

Moreover, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) still recommends that everyone aged 5 years and older gets a COVID-19 vaccine to help protect against COVID-19. Children aged 6 months to under 5 years who are at greater risk of severe disease are also eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.

Consequently, there is a high percentage of children aged under 5 years old who are not yet immunised.

At the time of writing this article, the NSW Government has not updated its Public Health Orders to reflect this upcoming change. Nor has there been any new information via the NSW Department of Education's Sector Updates.

ECEC services are already extremely concerned about the severe labour shortages of educators and teachers, as well as the high percentage of children aged 0-5 years old not yet immunised.

Early childhood educators, teachers and service providers are therefore rightly concerned if it is enough to treat COVID-19 as similar to Gastroenteritis (aka gastro) from an infectious diseases perspective and in terms of services' related policies and procedures. Notwithstanding, the NSW Department of Education and NSW Health are effectively saying that services will themselves be responsible for taking all reasonable and necessary precautions to address all infectious diseases (including COVID-19).

Members can contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au should they need any further information/clarification.

PUBLISHED: 6 OCTOBER 2022

UPDATED: 12 OCTOBER 2022