The Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont hopes to distribute 80,000 at-home test kits to parents within the next week so parents can test their children for COVID-19 before sending them back to school.
Gov. Phil Scott said Tuesday that the details of the plan will be announced within the next few days as the state learns how many tests it will be receiving from the federal government.
“You can expect this to include pickup locations for parents to get at home tests for their kids before returning to class,” Scott said.
Education Secretary Dan French said sending the tests home is part of a broader testing strategy to expand access to antigen tests across the state. Under the program, schools will provide the tests the families for their children.
“The parents, not schools, will be responsible for administering the tests at home. That’s a major change that we’re going to see,” French said. “Essentially, schools we come a distribution point of antigen test for students and their families, not administrators of a testing program.”
Schools will continue to perform the more accurate tests, but they will be switching from PCR tests to LAMP tests, which provide faster results.
The new testing strategy comes as Vermont braces for a spike in cases caused by the arrival of the more transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Cases in Vermont had remained relatively low, but on Wednesday, the state reported 940 cases, 200 more than the previous one-day record, set on Dec. 10.
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