State to drop funding for school COVID testing | WGBH

CEID Faculty Dr. Cassandra Pierre weighs in on the Massachusetts decision to stop providing COVID-19 testing in schools this fall

“… With schools left to purchase self tests through a statewide contract, experts say the change will exacerbate inequities across different districts.

‘For those school districts that do decide to continue testing, they’re going to have to earmark additional funds outside of their existing programming to purchase it from the schools,’ said Cassandra Pierre, medical director of Boston Medical Center Public Health Programs. ‘And that is not an inconsequential thing in school districts that are less resourced.’

…’One of the concerns I have is the language that we see shifting where you now are hearing that testing is a burden or an imposition that we’re forcing on our children rather than the resource that it is,’ said Pierre. ‘This disease has kind of highlighted our interconnectedness. So children can transmit to their parents, to their grandparents, to other vulnerable members of the community.’…

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