An effort is being made to get more COVID-19 tests to schools.
Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box said in a press conference Friday that more mobile units are being deployed and supplying schools with BinaxNOW rapid tests.
“These rapid tests can quickly assess whether a student’s symptoms are COVID or not and this can help reduce quarantine and keep children in school when they are healthy enough to be there,” stated Dr. Box.
Dr. Box commented that surveys were sent to 2,000 schools to ask if they were offering testing.
Dr. Box continued, “A total of 318 schools responded by the end of the day. Of those that responded, 35 percent indicated that they were already offering testing and 53 percent indicated that they were interested in receiving BinaxNOW cards. We will be working to get those cards to the schools that are interested as quickly as possible, but given the low, initial response rate we estimated that only about 10 percent of schools across the state are offering testing.”
The survey will be reopened to give schools another chance to respond.
On this week’s school dashboard, a toggle feature will be included to show the different school years and COVID-19 statistics available. Dr. Box noted that 1,200 schools in the state have not reported COVID-19 cases to the Indiana Department of Health, as required by code.
