President Joe Biden has planned to send Covid testing kits for students in schools in a bid to keep the offline education going amid the surging Omicron cases.
“Biden sending more Covid tests to schools to keep them open”, CNBC Tweeted.
On Wednesday, the White House declared that the government is working on making 5 million PCR tests (lab-based) and the same quantity of rapid tests available for the safe opening of the schools and will be available from the current month. The current spending is an addition to the $10 billion allocated to the school-based Covid testing authorized in the coronavirus relief law. And around $130 billion was designated in that relief law for free testing to keep the schools open.
Joe Biden’s current initiative for schools’ and kids’ safety came after the White House was targeted for low supply for testing kits and following the closure of the third-biggest public school in Illinois.
The school’s closure was a black eye for the president, who is now making efforts for the re-opening of the schools on priority.
“We have been very clear, publicly and privately, that we want to see schools open,” said Jen Psaki, the press secretary of the White House on Monday. She quoted the surprising amount of fundings for the schools’ safety as proof of the government ensuring “we were prepared and had resources needed to address whatever may come up in the pandemic.”
The current delivery of the testing kits would only cover a small number out of more than 50 million educators and students in public schools. The current plan should cover the critical deficits in academies with difficulty securing Covid tests through available funding.
“States will be able to request the tests immediately, and the tests will be available for use by the end of the month”, says the White House.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on releasing a new set of guidelines later this week for the schools to implement.
