The Pennsylvania Department of Health announced that it’s directing vaccine providers to support COVID-19 vaccination clinics at institutions of higher education and K-12 schools for the 2021-22 school year. Additionally, the departments of Health and Education are partnering with Concentric by Ginkgo Bioworks to provide free COVID-19 testing at K-12 schools across the commonwealth to mitigate outbreaks in schools.
“A priority of the Wolf Administration is to have and maintain in-person instruction, sports programs and other extracurricular activities at schools,” said Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam. “Unfortunately, we continue to see predominately unvaccinated Pennsylvanians infected with multiple variants of COVID-19, including the highly contagious Delta variant. This reinforces the need for accessible COVID-19 vaccinations for eligible individuals in K-12 schools so that our students, teachers and staff can stay safe.”
Funding for these initiatives comes from nearly $338 million in federal U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funds allocated to Pennsylvania to detect, diagnose, trace and monitor COVID-19 and prevent its spread in schools.
Regarding the vaccination clinics, when requested to do so by any institution of higher education or school entity, vaccine providers are expected to make every effort to coordinate a free vaccine clinic for the employees, contractors, volunteers, students or students’ families of the school. The clinics can be held at the school or a location agreed upon by the school and vaccine provider. If a provider is unable to coordinate a clinic, the provider is responsible for directing the school to the Department of Health to be provided with contact information for other providers. More information is here.
The CDC recommends that people who are fully vaccinated and have a known exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 be tested 3-5 days after exposure, and to wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result.
As for the K-12 testing program, pooled classroom testing would combine anterior nasal swab samples from all consenting individuals in a classroom and run them as a single test. Pooled testing would be performed weekly to identify and prevent the spread of COVID-19 throughout the schools. Mid-nasal swab and saliva-based polymerase chain reaction tests would be performed. The turnaround time for testing results is 1-2 days after testing. Testing is voluntary. This $87 million testing contract will run throughout the 2021-22 school year.
“We built Concentric because everyone’s health is connected, and we’re proud to work with school districts across Pennsylvania to support comprehensive testing within school communities,” said Matthew McKnight, chief commercial officer at Ginkgo. “Asymptomatic testing provides critical information to educators, public health leaders and community members. Each of us at Concentric is committed to supporting communities as they work to keep kids in classrooms and COVID out this fall.”
