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COVID-19 Child Care Playbook and Testing Update

June 21, 2022

Dear Valued Providers,

The Child Care Playbook has been updated and can be found here.

The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) Child Care Team has a few COVID-19 testing updates and reminders:

RIDOH is transitioning the State-supported testing and vaccination sites to traditional partners and settings for providing COVID-19 services as of July 1.
COVID-19 testing will continue to be widely available across the state. There are many places where Rhode Islanders are able to access free COVID-19 testing. Please refer to this one-pager for a description of the various options for COVID-19 testing in Rhode Island. It is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. For more information on COVID-19 testing in Rhode Island, visit ri.gov/testing.
Beginning July 1, people who want to get vaccinated or boosted can call their healthcare providers or use other options available at org, such as retail pharmacies and vaccine.gov.
Child Care Test to Stay (TTS) testing supplies will continue to be provided to programs implementing TTS, at no-cost, by RIDOH through the Fall of 2022, while supplies last. You can request supplies through this link here. TTS forms and templates can be found on the DHS website here .
PCR tests should not be required by child care providers as part of their illness policy when requiring children and staff to test due to being a close contact or symptomatic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and RIDOH approve the use of antigen/self-tests in both scenarios. As the state moves to an endemic state and shifts more responsibility for COVID-19 testing to the health care system, child care providers should work to adapt their illness policy accordingly.
Antigen tests are no longer recommended on day 5 of isolation. Individuals that test positive for COVID-19 must isolate for at least 5 days. They may return to child care on day 6 if they don’t have symptoms or symptoms are improving and they have been fever-free for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medication).