More than 500 Flemish crèche forced to close due to coronavirus infections during the past 2 weeks
According to figures from the Flemish children’s agency Kind en Gezin more than 500 crèches, child minders or after school child care facilities have been forced to close during the past two weeks. . Only facilities that have been closed for at least one full week during the past fortnight are included among the figure of 503 coronavirus-related closures.
A further 100 child-care facilities were partially closed for at least a week during the past 14 days. Kind en Gezin’s Nele Wouters told VRT News that "It is the case anyway that a larger child care facility can go into partial closure because there are other classes in which no one is infected.
But smaller facilities and child minders don’t have this possibility and are forced to close completely”.
Meanwhile, the Flemish Government has decided that measures that were in force during the first lockdown whereby parents won’t have to pay if their child is unable to go to the creche for a day will be applicable again during the forthcoming lockdown.