Some schools in Wake County will begin COVID-19 testing for students, staff

Several Wake County schools will be the first in the district to offer COVID-19 tests to students and staff members on campus.

The first schools to begin testing include:

According to the district, testing will expand to all schools in 2022.

The COVID-19 tests are voluntary, and parents or guardians will need to register any student 18 or under before they can get a test.

The district will use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and medical professionals supplied by Mako Medical Laboratories. Testing will be performed at no-cost to students or staff.

To help reduce and control the spread of coronavirus, Mako's medical staff will conduct regular "pooled" COVID-19 testing by swabbing the noses of up to six staff or students and combining the swabs in a single tube to run it as a single sample.

A negative pool result is a presumptive negative test for all, but a positive pool result would require each member of the pool to be tested again, also by Mako Medical, later that week.