WASHINGTON — In hopes of keeping schools functioning normally as a new surge fueled by the Omicron variant appears to be on its way, the Biden administration has endorsed a new strategy called “Test to Stay,” intended to prevent students from having to undergo lengthy quarantines at home if they’ve been exposed to the coronavirus in the classroom.
Instead, students can keep going to school, provided that they are tested for COVID-19 regularly and don’t show any signs of illness.
“Test to Stay is an encouraging public health practice to help keep our children in school,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a Friday briefing of the White House pandemic response team, which came as infection rates are rising in many parts of the country.
“That testing needs to be at least twice during the seven-day period after exposure,” Walensky said on Friday, and reiterated the need to keep masking in schools.
The new approach, abbreviated as TTS, relies on…
