In the hopes of keeping schools open as a new outbreak fueled by the Omicron variant appears to be on the way, the US administration has endorsed a new strategy called ‘Test to Stay,’ which aims to keep students from having to spend time at home quarantined if they’ve been exposed to the coronavirus in the classroom.
Instead, adolescents can continue to attend school as long as they are tested for COVID-19 on a regular basis.
‘Test to Stay is an encouraging public health approach to help keep our children in school,’ Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a White House pandemic response team briefing on Friday, as infection rates in several parts of the country rose.
‘That testing needs to be done at least twice during the seven-day period after exposure,’ Walensky said on Friday, emphasising the importance of maintaining masking in schools.
TTS is an abbreviation for the new method, which is based on the availability of fast antigen tests, which are still expensive and difficult to obtain in many parts of the country. Moreover, the CDC’s support does not imply that state and local officials will rush to execute the new guidelines.
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