At-Home Tests for School Covid Surveillance

Above, Governor Baker, flanked by Lt. Governor Karen Polito, announce new testing approach.

Franklin schools, along with others in Massachusetts schools week will be able to sign up to receive at-home rapid Covid tests for weekly use by their students and staff, and those that choose to do so will stop contact tracing and participating in the "test-and-stay" program that allows close contacts to stay in the classroom as long as they test negative for the virus daily.

State officials said Tuesday morning that the new option for local school districts will allow school nurses to focus more on symptomatic individuals and general COVID-19 management. Schools will still need to continue participating in symptomatic or pooled testing to take part in the new at-home test program.

K-12 students and staff at schools that opt in to the program will receive one packet of two COVID tests each week for use on a day designated by local officials. Local districts can start opting in to the program for staff this week and will start receiving tests for staff during the week of Jan. 24 while tests for students will be distributed the week of Jan. 31.

The tests will be shipped directly to school districts and come from a supply of 26 million rapid tests that Gov. Charlie Baker announced last week his administration had ordered from iHealth.

"School nurses and others have done an incredible job around the clock to make [the test-and-stay] program operate as effectively as it has here in Massachusetts and it's been massively successful in avoiding days lost at home," Baker said on Tuesday. "But the current state of the pandemic requires that we adapt our efforts to meet the times."

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said the move would "enable school health staff to spend more time and resources identifying symptomatic individuals and focusing on other aspects of COVID-19 management."

In a press release ahead of the 10 a.m. announcement at the State House, DESE said states including Connecticut and Vermont "have recently transitioned from individualized contact tracing to the use of at-home tests and focusing school health efforts on symptomatic testing."

DESE Commissioner Jeff Riley called the new at-home testing program a "game changer," adding the new program allows schools to pivot strategies away from identifying asymptomatic close contacts to Covid mitigation and symptomatic testing efforts.

"We've also heard from many nurses and school administrators urging us to make changes to our test-and-stay program and the contact tracing associated with it," Riley said. "And both our medical advisors and the [Department of Public Health] say it's time to pivot."

In a Tuesday letter from Riley to local school officials, the commissioner said positivity rates from the test-and-stay program indicate that individuals identified as close contacts in school are "very unlikely" to contract or spread COVID-19.

--Chris Van Buskirk and Katie Lannan, SHNS

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Mask Lawsuit Tries Again

At almost the same time that Baker and DESE were holding their news conference, the attorney for a plaintiff group, Children's Health Rights of Massachusetts is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, was going before Judge Ditkoff of the Massachusetts Appeals Court in Boston. Ditkoff started off by saying, " I'll just say that. I have read all the memoranda, I have gone through the appendix. I have nine pages of notes. So I'm very familiar with what's in front of me."

Plaintiff attorney Fogi reiterated many of the arguments made previously and suggested that the recent rulings against the Biden administration in mandating employer vaccinations provide relevant examples of administrative organizations overstepping their bounds.

Four attorneys representing various defendants (including Cambridge and Dover) rebutted that argument and cited broad mandates given to school authorities and boards of health.

The hearing lasted approximately one hour. The matter is now being reviewed by Judge Ditkoff.

Below -- Zoom hearing at Appeals Court.