The technology exists for fast, daily coronavirus testing, but the U.S. has been slow to adapt.
At Trinity Academy, the school where I teach in North Portland, we have spent much of the summer meeting with a task-force including faculty, parents and public health experts, to determine how to safely reopen the school for partially in-person education in accordance with state guidelines. We recently found out that plan was on hold; all schools statewide will be remote-only until certain state- and county-level thresholds for containing the coronavirus have been reached.
Students need to return to school. But they need to do so safely — if not, schools could become virus-spreading hotspots. Until we have a vaccine, there’s only one way to do that: rapid daily testing of every student, faculty and staff member. This kind of testing is possible, so why don’t we do it?