School districts to roll out COVID-19 saliva screenings Several suburban school districts are planning to roll out a saliva-based COVID-19 screening program in hopes of reducing the transmission of the virus among students and staff members. Unlike the tests administered at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the surveillance testing adopted by districts such as Naperville Unit District 203 and Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 is not diagnostic but is used to detect high viral loads for early identification of potential COVID-19 cases. courtesy of the University of Illinois Naperville Unit District 203 is among the suburban school districts planning to roll out a COVID-19 saliva screening program administered through Safeguard Surveillance LLC. Here, samples go through a heat inactivation process after scanning to ensure they are safe to open and can be detected properly.
Schools need to reopen with teachers, and CPS needs to actually make sure schools are safe to reopen. Both those things can be true.
The challenge is that CPS just bought a bunch of air purifiers from Bed Bath and Beyond and called it a day.
But good luck spotting any.
That’s cute of CPS. Exactly where would they plan to find 1000 new teachers? It’s not like teachers are chomping at the bit to teach for CPS.
The actual studies from epidemiologists have shown that while being back in school is “safe” for students, it contributes significantly to community spread. Yes, the students are “safe” because they generally are asymptomatic at that age, so they don’t turn up as positive cases. But they take the virus home and spread it to their older relatives, significantly driving up community spread.