PERRYSBURG, Ohio — Ohio Governor MIke DeWine shut down senior citizen centers and senior day care centers Monday, but right now, child daycares remain open.
However, as more businesses close or reduce hours some daycares are seeing a drop in children in attendance.
Kids Watch in Perrysburg has stayed open throughout this ongoing crisis. Manager Taylor Limes said now they're only really serving kids of essential workers and plan to stay open as long as they can.
Daily cleaning routines have been greatly increased with surfaces and toys being disinfected multiple times a day with state-certified disinfectants and bleach.
Limes said they were serving around 40 kids before closures began and now they're under 10 daily, with almost all of those being children of people still working, like hospital, police and grocery workers. She said that she believes they need to be able to stay open.
"We should leave that open to parents I think," she said. "I mean I'm taking everything precaution. I'm doing more than grocery stores and grocery stores are staying open. Like I do think we should kind of close other things but we are essential. Once we go down, healthcare providers start going down."
Limes said they've applied through the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services for a pandemic care license, which would allow them to remain open and take care of children of essential service workers. But with things changing day to day, she's not sure if that will even happen.