There's around 50M K-12 students in public schools. That's roughly $4k per student over the course of about 18 months, at the time the article was written. Subtract six months for summers, if you like; that's still ~360 days, for about $11/student/day. It's not nothing, but a single rapid test costs more than that.
Still find the difference in that so weird. rapid tests are a 2-3 € supermarket item here, if you'd be buying in bulk for a school system they'd be cheaper. And at least some schools/day cares have been doing pool testing.
Yes, I believe the main difference comes down to the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) being slow and hidebound about approving rapid tests, with the result that the few manufacturers who got through the whole arduous approval process have been able to reap near-monopoly profits.
You don’t need to rapid test every student every day for a year! $4,000 per kid is a ton of money for PPE, remote learning supplies, test kits, ventilation, etc. The money has mostly been set on fire.
Yep and now it’s gone. Schools are notoriously wasteful when it comes to large sums of money. Almost none of the allocations go to high ROI Items like hiring teachers or buying basic school supplies. Schools love buying tech though because it’s always a black hole for capital spending
At least in LA, its not the schools. Its, as an earlier poster said, administration. The mental association of "school" is usually a group of teachers and maybe a principal.
In multiple cities, political leadership at the mayoral level has been shown to be getting kickbacks and other favorable terms from our dear beloved employers to adopt that technology. In LAUSD it was Villaragosa and Apple.
When we say the money is "wasted", it's because there is corruption at levels higher than any individual school. Usually.
Yeah I think that’s true the corruption is either dictated down as in you must buy apple products or you get nothing. Happens at a district level where for example they they hire a consulting firm and pay millions of dollars
Rapid test will test negative when someone is already contagious.
It won’t be an effective means of stopping spread. Instead give out surgical masks or n95 to all kids. Cloth masks allow 90%+ of the virus to enter/leave. Add hepa filters. Add space heaters and leave the windows open. Maybe teach outside in parklet if possible.
I am probably being a smartass but if the purpose is to check whether there is at least one positive student (no matter who) you can do so with one single collective test a day.
