Last Saturday s vaccine clinic was only for Framingham residents 75 and older. Some who didn t qualify got a shot for COVID-19. That won t be the case this weekend.
Despite COVID-19, some say it s time to go back to school. Others respond not so fast.
“It’s 100% the right time to go back in the classroom,” she said.
Infection numbers are low for school-aged children, Bello said. Plus, remote learning is “taking a toll on kids.”
Bello’s mother, Nicole Lombardi, said that is the case for her daughter.
“It’s scary,” Lombardi said of emotional impacts on students from remote learning, especially for students who don’t have proper support at home.
Since last June, state education leaders have pushed school districts to safely get as many students back into classrooms as possible. Many districts have turned to hybrid learning, which puts half of a school s total number of students inside the building at a time, while the other half learns remotely. The two groups switch places weekly.
School districts face many questions when it comes to figuring out what makes the most sense for testing students and staff for COVID-19. What test is best? Is there enough money in the budget to pay for it?
Many districts are considering what s called COVID-19 pool testing, now that the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is offering a free, six-week pilot program.
Pool testing is batching samples for testing in a lab. It saves money because pooling the samples together is cheaper than testing each sample individually. However, if a batch returns a positive result, then each sample must be tested individually, driving up costs.