Students in Wyandotte County who have COVID-19 symptoms will now be able to be tested for the virus at school.
The Unified Government’s Public Health Department conducted training for all public school nurses in the county this week.
Those nurses are now able to administer COVID-19 saliva tests to students, faculty and staff who display symptoms.
The UG Health Department will provide and pay for these tests through the end of the year.
“What we are really trying to prevent is the spread of COVID-19 within the schools,” Elizabeth Groenweghe, the county’s chief epidemiologist, said.
Prior to this week, a student who had COVID-19 symptoms would be sent home from school. That student would be required to get a COVID-19 test before he or she could return.
“We quickly realized that there were a lot of barriers for parents to get those COVID tests done for those students, because of transportation or time the parent needed to take off from work,” Groenweghe said.
Now, a student will be take a test before they are sent home.
The test requires a saliva sample. It is not a rapid test, so it does require samples to be sent to labs. The turnaround time, according to Groenweghe, is 24 to 48 hours.
“Once an infectious disease gets within a school it spreads very quickly,” she said. “By identifying which of those students is infected and getting them out of the building as quickly as possible and identifying all of their contacts and quarantining all of their contacts right away, all of those measures can help prevent the spread of COVID within the school building.”
Wyandotte County plans on training nurses at private schools within the county in the upcoming week.
