K–12 TESTING
Hello friend,
GINA RAIMONDO
From the earliest days of this pandemic, Rhode Island has led the nation in testing. We’ve run more tests per capita than any other state in the country and substantially more than our neighbors. There’s no question that our aggressive testing strategy has been critical to our success in keeping a lid on this virus. Building on that success will be crucial in safely reopening schools for in-person learning.
To ensure rapid, effective testing for our school communities, we are creating a dedicated testing structure for K-12 students and staff at both public and private schools. Through this system, we’ll have the daily capacity to run 4,000 PCR or diagnostic tests with 48-hour results and 1,200 rapid tests with same-day results. Here’s how it will work.
If a student or staff member wakes up with symptoms, they’ll need to stay home and schedule a COVID test. You can do that by calling our dedicated K-12 testing hotline. When you call the hotline, you’ll get an appointment at one of our K-12 swabbing sites. We’ll announce the number for that hotline when we get closer to the first day of school.
When you get to the testing site, we’re going to run two types of tests: a PCR test and a rapid test. The PCR or diagnostic test is more sensitive, but it takes a little longer to get your results. On the flip side, the rapid tests have helped us immediately identify thousands of positives since the start of this pandemic, but it’s a little less sensitive. This dual approach will give us both same-day results that our contact tracers can use to immediately take action and a more sensitive test to confirm the accuracy of those results.
While you wait for your results, you need to stay home. If your test is negative, you can return to school after your symptoms have improved, as long as you’re fever-free for 24 hours. If your test is positive, you’ll need to follow CDC guidance before coming back to school—you’ll need to be fever-free for 24 hours with improving symptoms and it needs to be 10 days after symptoms first appeared. If you’re asymptomatic, you need to isolate for 10 days after your swab was performed.
We’re also preparing for the reality that students or staff will develop symptoms while in the school building. If anyone feels sick in school, they’ll immediately go to their school’s dedicated isolation room until they can leave the building . Once at home, the process is the same—you’ll call the hotline and schedule your swab. You’ll get your rapid test result the same day, and the PCR result within 48 hours.
As an additional precaution, we’re going to test certain asymptomatic populations through our K-12 hotline. If you’re a close contact of someone we know has COVID-19, you’ll also get tested at one of our K-12 swab sites.
As a reminder, I’m holding press conferences every day this week at 1 p.m. to give an update on our school reopening plans . Tomorrow, I’m going to talk in more detail about what happens if you test positive and how we’re going to use rapid contact tracing and case investigation to prevent outbreaks.
We’re all in this together,
-Gina Raimondo
Governor