Sign up for e-mail updates on the latest coronavirus news and researchīut this fall, Omaha Public Schools does not have a COVID-19 testing program at all.
Catching those cases is crucial to nipping outbreaks in the bud and keeping kids in school and healthy. In other words, regular testing of all students and staff will catch far more COVID-19 cases than simply testing those who demonstrate COVID-19 symptoms or have a known exposure to the virus. Jana Broadhurst, a microbiologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who led the team that designed and implemented pilot programs for the school district. “Asymptomatic screening dramatically increases case detection among students and staff in the K through 12 setting,” says M. The pilot program detected 70 cases per 1,000 students, compared with 12 per 1,000 in the official tally reported by the local public health department, researchers report September 22 in JAMA Network Open. The result? During Omaha’s pilot of frequent, asymptomatic testing, the rate of cases detected in the school testing program was six times as high as the case rate reported by traditional testing for symptomatic students only.
School districts across the country were starting to design pilot programs for routine COVID-19 testing in the coming fall semester, and Omaha Public Schools wanted to join the trend. In August 2020, the school superintendent in Omaha, Neb., approached a microbiology lab at the local university’s medical center.
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