Although the latest wave of Covid, fueled by the Delta variant, is cresting in some places, its impact has been felt, including by parents who were relying on schools being open for in-person sessions this fall. After a year and a half of stop-start at schools, the fall semester is already being hampered with many schools having to close or quarantine significant portions of their population.
This is especially bad news as there has been little headway made by legislators or the private sector in finding ways to provide parents with paid leave to deal with care-related emergencies, most notably by the sudden closure of schools. In a recent article for The Romper, Eliot Haspel argues that businesses must develop flexible and equitable strategies to help alleviate the burden on parents who may be forced to resume full-time childcare when Covid outbreaks occur.
Haspel suggests policies like “dependent COVID leave” which would allow workers with dependents to bank time. He also notes that care needs to be paid to providing workers, and especially managers, with proper training to understand why there is a need for such contingencies.
Even with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine receiving full FDA approval, setting up a gargantuan fight over vaccine mandates, and school systems, such as New York City public schools, requiring all employees to be vaccinated, this seems unlikely to be enough to prevent outbreaks in the short term, especially as vaccination efforts have stalled and breakthrough cases increase. Thinking realistically, this pandemic is far from over, and we think Haspel’s ideas have real merit for alleviating the stress for people with dependents.
