'Boogers down': Biden's bid to reopen schools may hinge on 'pooled' testing

A growing number of the nation’s school districts are experimenting with a Covid-19 testing regime they hope will get millions of children back into their classroom — if they can keep up with the price tag.

The Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief law is steering $10 billion toward developing a national school coronavirus testing strategy as its latest bid to reopen schools. That plan is still in flux but some attention has turned to the practice of “pooled” testing that uses a collection of swabs from a fixed group of kids attending classes together. The process is meant to limit the spread of a potential outbreak while minimizing the costs of the frequent large-scale testing needed to keep the disease in check. Pooled testing can extend testing capacity by testing groups of samples at once rather than each person individually. If a pool sample comes back positive, each individual in the pool is then tested.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/29/boogers-down-bidens-bid-to-reopen-schools-may-hinge-on-pooled-testing-cliques-478396