EPftF: Testing Purposes
Jun. 7th, 2020 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutIn general, the purpose of testing for a disease is to make treatment decisions and to monitor and control transmission of contagious disease.
If you are not going to treat a condition once found (where treat, for purposes of this sentence, means, do anything differently at all), then you should not test for it. If the decision is made to open a school (or anything else, for that matter), and continue to keep it open with no modifications no matter what test results produce, then you can skip the testing entirely. It is irrelevant, and an added expense.
Any testing plan, thus, should be made in the context of What Will You Do If You Find a Positive Result That Is a Real Result (and for the purposes of this sentence, we are going with: repeatable positive test result in a person who had not previously had the disease. I am assuming we are going to NOT continue to test recovered people who pop positive test results even tho they are recovered. ETA: https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/08/viral-shedding-covid19-pcr-montreal-baby/). Most school reopening plans (reduce density, keep the same teacher with the smaller group of students for the whole day, no congregating in the cafeteria, no congregating on the playground, staggered start / end times) are designed so that if a positive test result occurs (and that could be a person who goes to a doctor for testing NOT sponsored by the school), then only a limited portion of the school would have to stay home and quarantine for 14 days or possibly longer if they too develop symptoms or have a positive test.
I think it is very important that the school system as a whole (parents, staff, teachers, students, taxpayers) clearly understand what will happen in the event of a positive test AND they must find that outcome better than alternative strategies (such as continuing remote / distance learning). There will be emotional distress associated with constantly wondering if this week / today is the day that we go back to remote learning. There is expense associated with the measures taken to “firewall” sections of the school from each other. If the argument is, But Parents Need to Go Back to Work, well, they will not be at work if there is a positive test in one of their children’s sections; they will be back at home distance learning in quarantine. If the argument is, But Kids Need to Be At School to Learn, well, they will not be at school learning if there is a positive test in their section. Even more importantly, even if there is NEVER a case in the school, the modified school structure (A/B schedules, no specials, no playground, no cafeteria, social distancing, wear a mask) may be such a negative experience that it is actually perceived as worse than modified remote / distance learning by an important fraction of the school system.
If you are not going to treat a condition once found (where treat, for purposes of this sentence, means, do anything differently at all), then you should not test for it. If the decision is made to open a school (or anything else, for that matter), and continue to keep it open with no modifications no matter what test results produce, then you can skip the testing entirely. It is irrelevant, and an added expense.
Any testing plan, thus, should be made in the context of What Will You Do If You Find a Positive Result That Is a Real Result (and for the purposes of this sentence, we are going with: repeatable positive test result in a person who had not previously had the disease. I am assuming we are going to NOT continue to test recovered people who pop positive test results even tho they are recovered. ETA: https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/08/viral-shedding-covid19-pcr-montreal-baby/). Most school reopening plans (reduce density, keep the same teacher with the smaller group of students for the whole day, no congregating in the cafeteria, no congregating on the playground, staggered start / end times) are designed so that if a positive test result occurs (and that could be a person who goes to a doctor for testing NOT sponsored by the school), then only a limited portion of the school would have to stay home and quarantine for 14 days or possibly longer if they too develop symptoms or have a positive test.
I think it is very important that the school system as a whole (parents, staff, teachers, students, taxpayers) clearly understand what will happen in the event of a positive test AND they must find that outcome better than alternative strategies (such as continuing remote / distance learning). There will be emotional distress associated with constantly wondering if this week / today is the day that we go back to remote learning. There is expense associated with the measures taken to “firewall” sections of the school from each other. If the argument is, But Parents Need to Go Back to Work, well, they will not be at work if there is a positive test in one of their children’s sections; they will be back at home distance learning in quarantine. If the argument is, But Kids Need to Be At School to Learn, well, they will not be at school learning if there is a positive test in their section. Even more importantly, even if there is NEVER a case in the school, the modified school structure (A/B schedules, no specials, no playground, no cafeteria, social distancing, wear a mask) may be such a negative experience that it is actually perceived as worse than modified remote / distance learning by an important fraction of the school system.