The Biden administration is putting $10 billion in funds allocated by the American Rescue Plan toward COVID-19 testing to help schools reopen.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will provide the money to states to support the screening of teachers, other staff, and students to return more schools to in-person instruction, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday.
The commitment of funds is congruent with the CDC’s school reopening guidance, which recommends that school administrators employ testing to identify those who have COVID-19.
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“COVID-19 testing is critical to saving lives and restoring economic activity,” acting HHS Secretary Norris Cochran said in a statement. “As part of the Biden Administration’s National Strategy, HHS will continue to expand our capacity to get testing to the individuals and the places that need it most, so we can prevent transmission of the virus and defeat the pandemic.”
While the CDC recommends vaccination for teachers and staff to encourage reopening, the Food and Drug Administration has not recommended that children under 16 years of age receive any of the approved coronavirus vaccines. Moderna, whose vaccine was approved as a two-dose regimen, started clinical trials in children from 6 months to 11 years old.
Many schools around the country have been offering in-person instruction or hybrid learning for months, and the CDC said in its school reopening guidance that data suggests it is “possible for communities to bring down cases of COVID-19 while keeping schools open to in-person instruction.”
Where schools haven’t reopened, some states have moved to fill in the gaps.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill Thursday requiring public schools to reopen for in-person instruction. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown ordered schools to offer either full in-person instruction or hybrid instruction by March 29 for kindergarten through fifth grade and by April 19 for grades six through 12.
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The CDC will devote $2.25 billion for testing and virus mitigation to address coronavirus-related health disparities among racial and ethnic minority groups and those living in rural areas, the HHS also announced Wednesday.
