Medford Schools Receiving Rapid Coronavirus Tests From State

MEDFORD, MA — Rapid coronavirus testing supplies will be distributed to 134 Massachusetts school districts, and Medford was one of the districts selected for the program, state education officials announced Wednesday.

The supplies are expected to be sent to school districts, charters and special education collaboratives by early December, said Jeffrey Riley, commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Qualifying schools had to meet several requirements, including offering some in-person learning, having the ability to report test results to the Department of Public Health and training for staff administering the rapid tests.

"By testing students and teachers and getting results within minutes, we will be able to identify infected individuals and their close contacts more quickly and to help stop any spread," Riley said in a news conference Wednesday.

This is in addition to pooled testing at Medford schools through a partnership with Tufts University and the Broad Institute of MIT. The program, expected to roll out in January, will enable the district to test students and staff for about a third of the cost of individual testing.

The rapid tests deliver results in about 15 minutes, but Riley noted they can be less reliable than a traditional COVID-19 tests that gets sent to a lab. This means the tests will only be used on students and staff who are already showing COVID-19 symptoms. A parent or guardian will also have to give consent for their child to take the test.

The voluntary program provided test kits to schools at no cost to the districts. Riley said the program uses the Abbott BinaxNOW rapid testing system, which was distributed to Massachusetts and other states under a contract with the federal government.

"Under federal guidelines, at this time, the Abbott BinaxNOW test is not to be used for broad-scale asymptomatic (testing) in schools and students, parents and staff should be aware that an antigen test result are not considered at this time diagnostic," Riley said. "Results are probable and confirmation of a person's COVID-19 status requires a PCR test."

Medford Public Schools' Director of Health Services Toni Wray said the tests will be given when students who are in school start displaying illness symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, new loss of taste or smell, nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, sore throat muscle or body aches and headache, fatigue and congestion in combination with other symptoms.

Symptomatic students, with parental consent, may have a rapid COVID-19 test done while they are in the satellite nursing office waiting to be picked up. Test results will provide the framework for the medical recommendations and referrals that school nurses provide to parents, Wray said. School nurses are currently being trained under DESE guidelines.

"We are excited to be able to implement rapid COVID-19 testing for our Medford Public School students. The Abbott BinaxNOW is a rapid antigen test that identifies viral load when a person is tested in the early stages of infection with COVID-19," Medford Superintendent Marice Edouard-Vincent said.