NEW YORK — New York City public school students will return to their classrooms for the start of the spring semester as scheduled next week — and in-school coronavirus testing capacity is being doubled as the omicron variant continues to drive up infection rates, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.
After weeks of concern that omicron could disrupt the Jan. 3 start of the spring semester, de Blasio appeared with Mayor-elect Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul in a virtual briefing Tuesday morning to declare that “schools need to be open” for the wellbeing of students and families.
“Let’s keep our kids in schools. Let’s all work together,” de Blasio said. “We will beat this together.”
During the fall semester, the city Department of Education conducted about 40,000 PCR coronavirus tests at public schools every week on average, and only unvaccinated students were eligible.
To better monitor spread of the virus, de Blasio said the city will double that capacity to 80,000 tests every week on average in the spring — and both unvaccinated and vaccinated students are going to be eligible.
In addition, Hochul said the state is setting aside 2.5 million at-home testing kits for students who have a close contact with an infected classmate.
In a policy shift, if a student tests negative on an at-home test after a close contact, they can return to school the next day, granted that they are asymptomatic.
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