[ad_1]
Editor’s Note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and advice in Medscape Coronavirus Resource Center.
On a recent Monday morning, a group of preschoolers walked into the gymnasium at Hillside School in the western suburbs of Chicago. These 4 and 5-year-olds were the first of more than 200 students to be tested for the coronavirus that day – and every Monday – for the foreseeable future.
At the front of the line, a girl wearing a unicorn headband and a sparkly pink skirt hugged a zippered bag with her name on it. She took out a plastic tube with a small funnel attached. Next, Hillside Superintendent Kevin Suchinski led the student to a location marked with paperwork. Suchinski taught him to carefully release – but not to “spit out” – about half a teaspoon of saliva into the tube.
“You wait a second, you make your saliva rise,” he told her. “You don’t speak, you think of pizza, burgers, fries, ice cream. And you drop it there, okay?
Results will come back within 24 hours. All students who test positive are advised to self-isolate, and the school nurse and administrative staff conduct contact tracing.
Hillside was among the first in Illinois to begin regular testing. Today, nearly half of Illinois’ 2 million K-12 students attend schools with similar programs. The initiative is supported by federal funding channeled through the state health department.
Schools in other states, such as Massachusetts, Maryland, New York State, and Colorado, also offer regular testing; Los Angeles public schools have gone further by making it compulsory.
These measures contrast starkly with the confusion in states where people still fight over wearing masks in class and other anti-covid strategies, places where some schools have experienced epidemics and even teacher deaths.
Weeks after schools reopened, tens of thousands of students across the United States were sent home to quarantine. This is a concern as options for quarantined K-12 students are ubiquitous – some schools offering virtual education and others offering little or no home-based options.
Suchinski hopes this investment in testing will prevent the virus detected at Hillside School from spreading into the wider community – and allow children to learn.
“What we say to ourselves is, if we don’t do this program, we could lose education because we had to close the school,” he said.
So far, parents and guardians of two-thirds of all students in Hillside have consented to the test. Suchinski said the school is working hard to rally the remaining families by educating them about the importance – and benefits – of regular testing.
Every school that can handle it should consider testing students weekly, or even twice a week, if possible, Becky Smith said. She is an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who developed the saliva test that Hillside and other schools in Illinois use. Smith pointed to several studies – including peer-reviewed research and preliminary research – that suggest rigorous testing and contact tracing is essential in keeping the virus at bay in K-12 schools.
“If you’re lucky you can get by without testing, [if] nobody comes to school with a raging infection and takes off their mask at lunchtime and infects everyone sitting at the table with them, “Smith said.” But relying on luck isn’t it. that we love to do. “
Hillside seventh-grade student Julian Hernandez said he felt safer knowing that classmates infected with the virus would not be able to pass it on to others.
“A friend of mine – he had it a few months ago when we were at school,” Julian recalls. “[He] and her brother had to come home… They were fine. They had only mild symptoms. “
Brandon Muñoz, who is in fifth grade, said he’s happy to get tested because he’s too young for the vaccine – and he really doesn’t want to go back to Zoom school.
“Because I really want to meet more people and friends and not stay in front of the computer for too long,” Brandon explained.
Suchinski, the superintendent, said Hillside has also improved ventilation throughout the building, installing a new HVAC system and screened windows in the cafeteria to bring more fresh air into the building.
Regular testing is an extra layer of protection, but not the only thing Hillside relies on: About 90% of Hillside staff are vaccinated, Suchinski said, and students and staff also wear masks.
Setting up a regular program of mass testing in a K-12 school requires good coordination, which Suchinski can vouch for.
Last school year, administrators at Hillside School facilitated the collection of saliva samples without outside help. This year, the school used funds earmarked for coronavirus K-12 testing to hire covid testers – who coordinate the collection, transportation and processing of samples, and reporting of results.
A few Hillside administrators help oversee the process on Mondays and also make testing easier for staff members, as well as more frequent testing for a limited group of students: the virus of those activities.
Compared to a year ago, covid testing is now both more affordable and much less invasive, said Mara Aspinall, who studies biomedical testing at Arizona State University. There is also more help to cover the costs.
“The Biden administration has allocated $ 11 billion for different testing programs,” Aspinall said. “There shouldn’t be any school – public, private, or charter – that can’t access this money for testing.”
Creating a mass testing program from scratch is a big step forward. But more than half of all states have announced programs to help schools access money and manage logistics.
If every school tested every student once a week, the roughly $ 11 billion allocated to testing would likely run out in a matter of months. (This assumes $ 20 to purchase and process each test.) That is, if a quarter of all U.S. schools tested students each week, the funds could last for the rest of the school year, Aspinall said.
In its advice to K-12 schools, updated Aug. 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not make a firm recommendation for these surveillance tests.
Instead, the CDC advises schools that choose to offer testing to work with public health officials to determine an appropriate approach, given community transmission rates and other factors.
The agency previously recommended screening at least once a week in all areas with moderate to high levels of community transmission. As of September 21, this included 95% of US counties.
For principals looking to explore options, Aspinall suggests a resource she helped write that is cited in the CDC’s guidelines for schools: The Rockefeller Foundation’s National Testing Action Plan.
This spring – with Hillside operating at around half of its capacity and before the more contagious delta variant took over – the school identified 13 positive cases among students and staff through its weekly testing program. The overall positivity rate of around half a percent has made some wonder if all of these tests are necessary.
But Suchinski said that by identifying the 13 positive cases, the school may have averted more than a dozen potential outbreaks. Some of the positive cases involved people who were not showing symptoms but who could still have spread the virus.
Weeks after the start of the new school year at Hillside, operating at full capacity, Suchinski said the excitement was palpable. Today, he balances feelings of optimism with caution.
“It’s great to hear the children laughing. It’s great to see children on the playgrounds,” Suchinski said.
“At the same time”, he added, “we know that we are still fighting against the delta variant and we must remain vigilant”.
This story originated from a partnership that includes Illinois Public Media, Side Effects Public Media, NPR and KHN.
Source link
