As many school districts resumed classes on Monday, they did so without having received a single test from the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom promised that schools would receive at-home COVID-19 tests in time for students to safely return to campuses after winter break, as health officials warned of a surge in cases over the holidays.
Tanya Schwarz, a Long Beach Unified parent, scrambled to acquire a test of her own before sending her daughter to school on Monday, and said she worries that schools will close campuses because they are not ready for Omicron outbreaks without proper testing.“I just feel completely let down by our local, state and federal leaders. It feels as if they have had no foresight, even though scientists were ringing the alarm about Omicron many weeks ago,” Schwarz said.
The state’s public health department said shipping delays due to storms across the country over the last two weeks led to fewer tests being delivered to California. “You may have heard that, this holiday season, California is encouraging families to access COVID-19 testing for their children before they return to school after the winter break. Unfortunately, there are no tests available for the district to distribute to families,” Carlsbad Unified said in a message to parents, adding that the state could not tell the district when a shipment of the promised tests would arrive.
Gandhi, however, said widespread testing for students returning to school isn’t as critical now as it might have been in the past, particularly when vaccines are readily available for school-age children, masks are worn inside, those with COVID-19 symptoms are required to stay home and the Omicron variant appears more mild.