Maine schools adopt pooled COVID-19 testing to combat delta variant. Here's how it works.

YORK, Maine — Teachers counted in unison, "one, two, three, four," with a room full of kindergartners at Village Elementary School as they swabbed both nostrils Tuesday to kick off a COVID-19 pooled testing program. 

A few students were nervous to participate, so Superintendent Lou Goscinski and VES nurse Julie Lizanecz asked the teachers to demonstrate the testing process before kids to show them everything will be fine.

Most students knew what to do from watching an instructional video Lizanecz had sent out ahead of the program's launch, but some needed a little extra help to assure an accurate sample had been taken. 

More:Wentworth-Douglass Hospital overflows as COVID cases surge. Concern for staff rises, too.

The teacher would carefully peel back the wrapper from the swab like a string cheese stick — which is what they called the cotton swab tests in front of kids — then collect a sample and drop it into a vial "boogie side down." Students would applaud.

Goscinski and Lizanecz hauled the cart of testing supplies from room to room, repeating the process with one VES classroom at a time. The process took about an hour and a half to finish on Tuesday, Goscinski said. 

In the first classroom, 10 out of 13 students participated in the pooled testing. As of Tuesday, 66% of staff and 57% of students are enrolled in the York School Department's program, well above the state's 30% minimum threshold for a district to participate, Goscinski said.

Goscinski helped administer tests and hand out stickers for the program's launch, but he doesn't plan to be in schools to conduct the testing himself every week moving forward. That being said, if the school can't find the two additional people needed to conduct testing, Goscinski said he may have to help out from time to time and is happy to do so. 

"They didn't teach me this at superintendent's school," he said.

The pooled testing is voluntary for students, but Goscinski announced last week that staffers who haven't been vaccinated for COVID-19 will be required to participate in pooled testing. When he made the announcement, there were 14 staffers, or 4% of YSD personnel, who had not completed their COVID-19 vaccination. Since then, two more have completed their COVID-19 shots and two others started, he said.

As of Friday, 384 of Maine's 720 public and private schools had signed up for pool testing with Concentric, a branch of Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks, spokesperson Joseph Fridman told the Bangor Daily News. The program calls for student tests to be pooled and sent to a lab in Massachusetts for PCR tests. If there's a positive test for a school, then individual students will be tested. The same company is among those offering pooled testing in New Hampshire schools as well.

New Hampshire Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Christine Brennan said 148 schools are confirmed participants in pooled testing and 11 more are pending, as of Tuesday. That includes public and private schools. 

Pooled testing: a tool to fight COVID-19 disruption

Maine started the week with more than a dozen outbreaks of COVID-19 in schools, and many schools are testing to mitigate the risk. That includes Regional School Unit 21, which serves Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel. 

Just one week into the new school year, RSU 21's Mildred L. Day School in Arundel shifted to full-time remote instruction because of a COVID-19 outbreak investigation that has grown to include 20 cases and more than 140 close contacts. 

District leaders said RSU 21's pooled testing program, which launched on Monday, is expected to reduce the number of close contacts who have to quarantine because of potential exposures to the virus.

More:RSU 21's Mildred L. Day School extends remote learning as COVID-19 count rises to 20 cases

Other districts in southern Maine are still working to launch their pooled testing programs. Sanford School Department Superintendent Matt Nelson said his district has applied to participate in the state's program and hopes to launch by the end of the month and be fully up and running in early October. In the meantime, the district is focusing on other risk reduction strategies, including mandatory mask wearing.

The school outbreaks across Maine come amid a surge in infections tied to the delta variant, which is spreading across the state and elsewhere.

Maine's latest COVID-19 numbers

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported nearly 670 coronavirus infections and eight deaths from the weekend.

Those figures reported on Tuesday bring the total number of infections to more than 81,000 and the death toll to 969 since the coronavirus pandemic hit, Maine officials said.

The state has been dealing with a surge in infections, and the state's intensive care units are busy. The state reported Monday a new peak of 40 patients on ventilators because of COVID-19. About three-quarters of those hospitalized — and nearly 100% of people in the ICU on some days — are not vaccinated against the coronavirus, the Maine CDC has said.

The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Maine has risen over the past two weeks from 246 new cases per day on Aug. 29 to 349 new cases per day on Sunday.

About two-thirds of the state's total population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. The percentage of the eligible population is about three quarters.

Testing production

Two companies that manufacture COVID-19 testing supplies in Maine say they're ready to step up to meet demand following the president's vaccine and testing mandates for companies with more than 100 workers.

Puritan Medical Products makes swabs used for testing, and Abbott Laboratories makes test kits in Maine. Both furloughed or laid off workers before the surge in COVID-19 tied to the delta variant.

"We are monitoring the situation, and are ready to ramp up based on government orders as we did before," Puritan said in a statement. 

Abbott spokeswoman Kim Modory told the Portland Press Herald that the company's Maine workforce "continues to deliver millions of rapid tests at a time when our country needs testing, particularly rapid testing, to manage this next phase of the pandemic."

Maine schools get additional $137M from American Rescue Plan

The U.S. Department of Education is releasing $137 million for Maine schools following approval of a state spending plan.

The money represents the last installment from the American Rescue Plan funds for Maine schools. The state already received $274 million.

Maine's plan includes opening schools for in-person instruction; support for vaccination clinics and pooled testing; expanded after-school programming; and a "learning facilitator" program to help schools meet staffing needs through the credentialing of paraprofessional-level educators, the Portland Press Herald reported.

The funds are available through Sept. 30, 2023, and can also be used to cover costs back to March 13, 2020, when a national emergency was declared. 

This report includes material from the Associated Press and Steven Porter.