COVID-19 Isolation Guidance for ECE/Child Care Programs

The Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) is reminding ECE and child care programs that they should continue to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID-19 recommendations regarding child care and early learning settings — particularly around isolation.

Learn More

The change in isolation guidance issued by the CDC to decrease to five days was focused on the "general population," where a greater number of individuals have the ability to become vaccinated.

However, the CDC’s guidance child care and early learning settings continues to advise the following:

"The length of time the child should stay out of an ECE program depends on whether the child has COVID-19 or another illness. In most instances, those who have COVID-19 can be around others after 10 days since symptoms first appeared and 24 hours with no fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and other symptoms of COVID-19 are improving. Children who test positive for COVID-19 but do not have symptoms can be around others 10 days after their first positive COVID-19 test."

The full current recommendations can be found on the CDC website.