Why Coronavirus Testing Is Falling Short in Many U.S. Schools -NYT

In California, storms over the winter break destroyed a million coronavirus test kits that were meant to help schools screen returning students. In Seattle schools, children waited for hours for virus testing, some in a driving rain. In Florida this month, an attempt to supply tests to teachers in Broward County turned up expired kits.

And in Chicago, a labor dispute, partly over testing, kept students out of school for a week.

As millions of American students head back to their desks — Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school district, started classes on Tuesday — the coronavirus testing that was supposed to help keep classrooms open safely is itself being tested. In much of the country, things are not going well.

Slammed by the ultra-contagious Omicron variant, pressured by political factions, baffled by conflicting federal guidance and hamstrung by a national shortage of rapid-test kits, many districts have struggled to ramp up or effectively establish testing programs. In many areas, schools have already had to close in recent weeks because flawed screenings have allowed infected children and teachers to return to class, putting others at risk.

A vast majority of schools have managed to continue in-person instruction, and in many areas, transmission in classrooms has been lower than in the broader community. But parents’ anxieties and confrontations with teachers’ unions are jeopardizing the Biden administration’s efforts to prevent a return to remote instruction. And even for districts that have working testing programs, high costs are raising questions about their sustainability.

Data from Burbio, a company that audits how schools have operated through the pandemic, shows that more than 5,400 schools have reverted to virtual learning since Jan. 3. The issue, epidemiologists say, is not that testing does not work — particularly in combination with vaccination, face masks and other precautions. Rather, they say, many districts are bungling the execution or failing to muster the resources necessary to test properly.

“A lot of schools are just testing parts of their population once a week, or not using the tests strategically, or confusing surveillance with testing to suppress outbreaks,” said Dr. Michael J. Mina, a former Harvard University epidemiologist and a leading expert on rapid testing who is now the chief science officer for eMed, which authenticates at-home test results.

The result, he said, has been the equivalent of an army going to battle without knowing how to use its weapons or understanding its objectives.