Inslee: COVID-19 testing in schools expands, vaccine supply likely to increase

A Washington state initiative to offer COVID-19 testing in schools is expanding into nearly 50 more districts, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Tuesday. The service is part of the state’s effort to get more students back to learning in-person with safety precautions in place.

“This is yet another layer of confidence that we want to offer people to go back” to in-person classes, Inslee said at a virtual press conference Tuesday afternoon.

Inslee also shared an update on the state’s vaccination efforts, including that the federal government this week will increase the number of doses it distributes — likely meaning more doses for Washington state.

More schools join COVID-19 testing program

Eleven school districts conducted testing as part of a pilot program, according to Department of Health spokesperson Frank Ameduri: Bellingham, Rainier, Spokane, Cascade, Davenport, Okanogan, Tahoma, Enumclaw, Yakima, Bainbridge Island, and Pullman. A press release from the Department of Health calls the results from the project “encouraging.”

It’s a Department of Health initiative, working in conjunction with the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Washington nonprofit Health Commons Project.

Dr. Shaun Carey, superintendent of Enumclaw School District, spoke at the press conference. Roughly 80% of its 4,000 students are back in school, he said.

“The addition of COVID testing, working in tandem with our counter-measures and with our safety protocols, provides an additional layer of protection, if you will, for our learning community and it allows for us to safely serve our students in this hybrid learning model,” Carey said.

It helps the district quickly respond to any positive cases, he said, to do contact tracing and contain transmission.

As part of the expansion, at least 48 more schools are signed up to be added this month. The districts volunteered to participate, according to health officials, and more districts are welcome to join.

In Thurston County, Griffin, Tumwater, Yelm, Rochester, North Thurston, and Olympia school districts are part of that list. In Pierce County, participating districts are Chief Leschi Schools, Steilacoom Historical School District, Eatonville, Sumner-Bonney Lake, and Bethel. The Pasco School District in Franklin County is also on the list.

Districts in the program have access to a planner from the Health Commons Project to create a tailored strategy, according to Inslee. The state also released a publicly available document schools can use to create testing strategies, deemed the “Learn to Return Playbook.”

Testing isn’t necessary to get back to school, Inslee said Tuesday, but “it’s a way to help build confidence.” Inslee said paying for the testing shouldn’t be a problem, with “hundreds of millions of dollars” in federal and state funding going to schools for testing protocols and other needs.

Recently released Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for safe in-person learning during the pandemic “broadly aligns” with the state’s guidance, Inslee said. He also pointed out that the CDC doesn’t consider vaccinating teachers a “prerequisite to going back to school.”

“We basically have said, unequivocally, that if we have strong health and safety measures, returning to school is a safe thing to be able to be done — if we pay attention to some of these safety protocols,” Inslee said.

Hope for increased vaccine supply

Some vaccine shipments from national distributors have been delayed as winter weather has hit much of the U.S., Lacy Fehrenbach said in response to a reporter’s question.

Typically, vaccine arrives to most providers on Monday, but some clinics scheduled for early this week probably got rescheduled, said Fehrenbach, the deputy secretary for COVID-19 response at the Department of Health.

Some clinics in Washington state closed due to winter weather here, Fehrenbach said, and in those cases providers have tried to reschedule appointments for this week.

Inslee said the federal government this week will increase the doses it distributes from 11 million to 13.5 million nationwide.

“We generally get maybe 2% of those additional doses,” Inslee said.

That increase is not certain, he said, but is significant.

“We are very appreciate of the Biden administration’s very quick action to increase these supplies,” he said.

Doses distributed directly to pharmacies will increase from 1 million to 2 million doses per week, he said. However, the exact number that will go to pharmacies in Washington state through that channel is uncertain.

“We now have over 1 million vaccinations in Washington state,” Inslee said. “More than 245,000 Washingtonians have already been fully vaccinated. Each one of those is a blessing.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 5:46 PM with the headline "Inslee: COVID-19 testing in schools expands, vaccine supply likely to increase."