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The Los Angeles Unified School District on Sunday announced plans for a widespread program that will test hundreds of thousands of students and teachers for COVID-19 as the school year officially begins this week.
The program will begin Monday and will be rolled out over the next several months by the school district, which will test approximately 600,000 students and 75,000 staff amid preparations for the eventual return to in-person teaching, District Superintendent Austin Beutner said. in a statement.
“Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary action, and while this testing and contact tracing effort is unprecedented, it is necessary and appropriate,” said Beutner. “This program will also provide significant educational benefits to students by getting them back to school earlier and safer and keeping them there.”
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A healthcare worker gives a girl a throat swab test at a coronavirus (COVID-19) testing center at MTO Shahmaghsoudi School of Islamic Sufism on August 11, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images)
Los Angeles Unified last month announced plans to start the new school year online due to a surge in cases and had to wait for clearance from public health officials before it could resume teaching in person. , which had ceased in March.
Beutner said the spread of COVID-19 in the Los Angeles area still far exceeds California guidelines and any decision regarding returning students to school is still “in some time.”
“The level of new cases in Los Angeles is still two and a half times higher than state guidelines, and although the proportion of those who test positive is below state thresholds, it is still considerably higher than the standards of the World Health Organization and those in force in New York, ”Beutner told the Los Angeles Times.
As part of the program, tests will first be provided to staff already working in schools and their children, the statement said. Tests will then be provided to all staff and students over time, with the aim of the first phase to establish a baseline.
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The program is expected to cost around $ 300 per student over the course of the year, which the Times estimated at around $ 150 million.
How it will be funded is unclear, but the district has already received hundreds of millions of dollars from states and the federal government to fund its coronavirus response efforts, according to the newspaper. A partnership has been established with scientists from UCLA, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins and former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who will oversee a task force alongside Beutner.
The program was rolled out as the number and infection rate of COVID-19 cases in children “steadily” increased between March and July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. New York City’s largest school system has yet to clarify how it will handle testing and contact tracing.
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“Since the schools closed, science has been our guide and science is creating the basis for this effort,” Beutner added. “This collaboration is the result of months of work around the clock by many people, and I am grateful for their efforts to get us to this point.
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