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State Will Require Testing 20% Of Students At Schools In Cuomo's "Yellow Zone"
By
Sophia Chang
Published Oct 9, 2020
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By
Sophia Chang
Published Oct 9, 2020
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The new state requirement to implement mandatory weekly COVID-19 testing at hundreds of New York City schools in yellow zones, areas created by Governor Andrew Cuomo to monitor for increasing rates of COVID-19, calls for testing 20% of all students, teachers and staff who are enrolled in in-person learning.
This state's new testing policy is on top of the city Department of Education’s existing randomized testing protocol of 10-20% of students in city schools monthly, which began Friday at 56 schools across the city.
Cuomo announced this week his new plan to combat rising rates of COVID-19 in parts of the state that categorizes neighborhoods with high COVID-19 rates into three zones: red, orange and yellow.
On Thursday, all public and private schools in the red and orange zones were closed — about 124 public schools in the hotspots of south Brooklyn and the Far Rockaways and Forest Hills in Queens. Students switched to remote learning for the next two weeks. Another 308 public school sites lay in the yellow zones, and need to implement the weekly testing by October 16th. The numbers of affected private schools were not available.
Cuomo has offered additional testing equipment for schools, but questions remain on how the new testing policy will be implemented and if it replaces the city’s testing plans at yellow zone schools.
The state-mandated testing is set to begin Friday, October 16th. While the state has promised to provide rapid test kits free to New York City schools and other school districts, it will be up to the DOE to implement the testing protocol.
“If a school needs additional testing equipment, they should contact us - we can help them. If they want to do pool testing, they should contact us, we can help them,” Cuomo said at his Tuesday press briefing. “These rules will be in effect for 14 days, and then we'll see where we are and we'll see the numbers and we'll adjust from there.”
The DOE said on its testing information website that testing will be conducted by providers such as “school nurses, City staff, and our partners: SOMOS, Bio Reference Laboratory, and Fulgent Genetics.”
After the tests are processed, the samples are discarded and results will be sent to the state and city Departments of Health, and to the Test & Trace Corps.
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COVID-19
coronavirus
schools reopening
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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