Roughly half of all Ontario daycares have reopened since they were allowed to back in June and current caps of 15-person cohorts will be lifted as of September 1st.
By removing the caps - that increased to 15 from 10 on July 27th - the provincial government hopes to meet its goal of 100 per cent pre-pandemic daycare capacity for the start of the school year.
Last month, NEWSTALK1010 reported only about 40 per cent of Ontario daycares had reopened despite Premier Doug Ford saying the province was back at over 90 per cent.
The higher figure came from the government raising its the limit to 15, which would "bring the child care sector to approximately 90 per cent of its operating capacity before the COVID-19 outbreak.”
The ministry of education provided updated daycare reopening numbers late last week, with just under 2,700 now in operation as of Thursday (daycares first began to reopen as of June 12th.)
That's up from 2,265 on July 21 and 2,066 on July 14th, showing there has been an increase in the rate at which facilities are reopening since the cohort change.
However, that still leaves more than half of all provincial daycares still needing to reopen, with the scheduled start of school three weeks away.
The government also sends out updated safety guidelines ahead of a cohort change, but as of Friday, the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care said they had not yet been released.
But even with the government providing guidelines and lifting cohort caps, local public health units are still ultimately responsible for signing off on a facility reopening.
Toronto Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa said last week she was looking forward to seeing the specific daycare protocols, saying her health team is constantly evaluating new evidence and practices.
"Whether it has to do with child care, whether it has to do with schools, we are actively incorporating all the lessons learned in order to make the environments as safe as possible," she said.
But she cautioned that despite all the measures in place, there is no such thing as a zero-risk environment with the virus still around and more of the economy restarting.
"We should expect that we will see cases, we will see increases in COVID-19 activity as more people mix with each other, as we see more interaction," she said. "The issue is making sure that we keep the activity, the COVID-19 activity at a level that we're actually able to manage it."