How to get greater testing than 10%

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You could encourage parents at your school to utilize DC's "Test yourself" program and test their kid at home every week. That's what we intend to do. You can even get the test kits ahead of time and then you just drop them off in one of the drop boxes when you do it. It's free and really easy.

Is it as good as 100% testing of the entire population? No. But if you can get enough families willing to do it (and provide them with information on how to do it and how easy it is), then you could seriously impact the school's ability to track Covid. We are doing it for our peace of mind, but I also view it as a public service to the school community, so we know we aren't sending an asymptomatic kid to school and so we can report any positive test sooner than we might if we waited for symptoms or for the school to test (assuming we're in the 10% which I still don't know if we will be).

How do you do this? I know I can get at home covid tests at libraries/community centers, but I thought those had to be returned the same day you get the test kit. Is that what you plan to do? (I would love to test my child at home every week, just trying to figure out the logistics)

You can pick them up whenever and just keep them at home. But then you have to register the test online, do the test, and drop it off at the library by 8 pm on the same day.

This. I picked up six for our family at once, we are planning on giving our kid one every Tuesday. I’ve heard it takes 24-36 hours to get results.

Apologies if I'm just dense... do you have to test and drop off on the same day you pick up the test? Meaning if I got a test today, I'd have to register, do the test and return it today? (It would be so easy if you could pick several on one day and return them weekly on the same day you/your child took them)

NO and if they try to tell you that when you pick up the test, ignore them. I don’t know how long they “keep” but it’s just a test collection kit so there is no reason you couldn’t get them for months in advance.

When you decide to use one, go online and register it, then take it and drop it off within 8 hours. We have a drop off on our way to school, so we plan to just make it part of our morning routine once a week.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The Binax tests are about $11 each. So if you need 500 tests/week, knowing there will be some opt-outs, I'd say if you could donate about $50k through your PTA, find a way to source that many rapid tests, and get a group of parent volunteers to help kids administer them, you could probably get through the next couple months.

You need to do binax twice over 18 hours as per the insert in Order to consider it a negative test. That makes it $22.

That’s what they cost all of us shopping at CVS.

The cost to the DCPS for a large bulk purchase would be far cheaper.

The Shield T3 testing K-12 that DCPS (and it sounds like many charters) is doing costs $35/test processed, according to their website. https://www.shieldt3.com/k12/

The cost of all this testing in the US just drives me absolutely bananas! In the UK you can pick up test kits free at any pharmacy! In Germany, you can get a five pack for about $3. What is wrong with this country??! Why can't public health get it together??

The UK and German ones are the rapid antigen tests like the ones you can get at CVS. But here we have to pay $25 for two, while in the UK they are free and in Germany they are 5 for $3. I don't know what kind of subsidies the German and UK governments are providing, but I highly doubt they are paying gazillions of dollars like we/our governments are.

Uh....the governments are paying for those tests. They are free to you (as many tests in DC are) but it's not like the test manufacturers can make the tests, administer the tests, or analyze the tests for free. It's not like you personally are paying for the tests at schools (except through your tax dollars).

[Anonymous]

Apologies if I'm just dense... do you have to test and drop off on the same day you pick up the test? Meaning if I got a test today, I'd have to register, do the test and return it today? (It would be so easy if you could pick several on one day and return them weekly on the same day you/your child took them)

You have to register it once you use the test. Then you return the test within that day. So you can pick up a pile of tests, register when you plan to take the test, and then return it.

[Anonymous]

The free DC home tests are PCR, available at many libraries.