Florida to begin shipments of rapid tests to schools, long-term care facilities
TAMPA, Fla. - Starting Wednesday, the Florida Division of Emergency Management will begin sending rapid COVID-19 test kits to schools and long-term care facilities around the state.
The state said it will send 60,000 rapid tests to school districts, with the number of tests being received varying depending on the number of schools, students, and staff. The initial shipment of rapid tests isn't enough to test even half of the state's 180,000 teachers, not to mention hundreds of thousands more staff and students.
The state said 100,000 rapid tests are being shipped directly to long-term care facilities, with priority given to facilities that did not receive an initial shipment of rapid tests from the federal government. The number of long-term care beds in the state of Florida is just higher than the number of tests allotted in their first shipment, however, many facilities may opt to test staff instead of residents.
Governor Ron DeSantis said the goal is for Florida to sent 400,000 tests a week, but the timeline for ramping up those deliveries was not immediately available.
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Public Health professor Dr. Marissa Levine with the University of South Florida said the rapid tests will be helpful.
“When there’s a potential exposure in the class is getting some idea of who else in the class was actually affected. Schools are really interested to know if everything they’re doing is preventable transmission within the classroom setting,” said Levine.
But there are drawbacks. Dr. Levine cautions that rapid tests are not as reliable as the tests that have a two-day wait period for results.
“If it’s negative, we can’t assume that you don’t have COVID, and it’s very important that people who are utilizing these tests appreciate those limitations,” she said. “I think we need more testing if we’re going to live with COVID. We can’t really have too much.”
Bay Area school districts told FOX 13 they plan to utilize the tests in different ways.