UPDATED: Bright Horizons Sends Email To Families To State Parent of Child Tests Positive For Coronavirus

NATICK – A parent with a child, who was at Bright Horizons in Natick as late as March 9, has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an email sent to Bright Horizons families and staff.

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Last week, according to the email sent to families & staff by Jessica King, a regional director at Bright Horizons, “a parent contacted us to let us know of a positive COVID-19 test result. That parent was last at the center on Thursday, March 5, and the children were last at the center for the morning Monday, March 9.”

(Updated) Bright Horizons spokesperson confirmed the contents of the email and said the center will be open on Monday, March 16.

(Updated) Families & employees from that Bright Horizon’s location said after 9:30 p.m. they were told that the site would be closed on Monday, March 16, but would re-open on March 17.

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Bright Horizons told parents & staff that when they learned of the outbreak at Biogen and that the company closed its offices due to confirmed cases of COVID-19, the child care company worked “proactively and immediately worked to identify families who attend our centers and work at Biogen. We spoke with Biogen and made the decision to exclude Biogen employee families from all our centers for 14 days regardless of whether they had symptoms or a COVID-19 diagnosis.”

Bright Horizons operates a child care center at Biogen in Cambridge. It also has centers across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including one in Natick.

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According to Bright Horizon’s email sent out this weekend, on Monday, March 9, “we identified these (Biogen), families and asked them to pick up their child/children at the center. We informed them that they would need to self-quarantine for 14 days.”

Bright Horizons in Natick sent out an email yesterday, March 14, but it apologized it did not communicate more quickly with families.

“With the rapidly evolving situation and the fast pace at which we were gathering information, we had a lapse in the time when we should have communicated with families. We should have shared this with you Thursday night, and we accept responsibility and apologize for any unnecessary distress we might have caused to you,” wrote Regional manager King in the email that went out this weekend.