Drive-through testing could start next week for staff and students in Columbia schools

The Columbia school district may establish drive-through rapid COVID-19 testing for staff and students as soon as next week, said spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark.

"We are expecting to get about 20,000 of the tests," Baumstark said. "They will be only for staff and students."

Students' family members can't be tested, she said.

President Donald Trump's administration on Monday announced the sending of 1.8 million rapid coronavirus tests to Missouri.

The tests can identify COVID-19 in as little as 15 minutes, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Gov. Mike Parson's administration told the agency that it plans to use about 60% of the tests on K-12 school testing. Another 30% will go to colleges and universities, and 10% will be saved for other uses.

Around 1 million of the tests have been shipped by the federal government, though there's no current timetable for when the rest will be mailed. About 583,000 antigen test kits were shipped Monday to the 330 public school districts and private schools that requested them, according to a state education department news release.

There may be one drive-through testing site for staff and one or two locations for students, Baumstark said. Students must have parental consent for the testing.

"Certainly every little bit helps," Baumstark said of the tests, adding that not all details have been established.

The state education department wants to do everything possible to make all resources available to school leaders during the pandemic, Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven said.

"We believe these rapid antigen tests, in conjunction with other mitigation strategies, could be instrumental in helping schools provide onsite learning opportunities safely," Vandeven said.

Elementary students in Columbia schools returned to classrooms four days a week on Oct. 19, but most middle- and high-school students are still receiving their education online only.

The school board will decide the next steps for middle school and high school students at its Nov. 9 meeting.

New information on the district's website on Tuesday showed seven positive cases among staff and 27 student positive cases. All other Boone County school districts are much smaller than the Columbia district and are holding classes in person.

The Centralia School District has asked for "a few hundred of the tests" for insurance, said Superintendent Steven Chancellor.

"We don't necessarily have a well-set-up plan right now," Chancellor said.

The district will continue to send sick students home and tell parents to consult with the child's doctor, he said. There may be scenarios where staff members might be tested, but that probably also would be rare.

"By and large, if they tell us they are ill, our first advice will be for them to go home, too," Chancellor said.

The district doesn't want to replace a child's parent or doctor, he said.

"It's insurance," Chancellor said of the tests. "I would rather have them and not use them than need them and not have them."

The Sturgeon School District won't be administering the tests, said Superintendent Geoff Neill.

The Hallsville School District also plans to make the tests available only to staff, said spokeswoman Kari Yeagy.

"We do not plan on administering the tests to our students; however, in very specific circumstances we can see using them for our faculty and staff if they so choose," Yeagy said. "The turn-around time of 15 minutes could be beneficial to our district, as opposed to the one or two days of wait time. (for current tests)."

The rapid tests for schools have upsides and downsides, said Scott Clardy, assistant director of the Columbia/Boone County health department.

"The advantage to these tests is that they are fast and cheap," Clardy said. "If the test is positive, then we treat it as a case."

If a test is negative and a person has symptoms, a different test is needed to rule out COVID, he said.

"Also, I think this program puts some liability and other responsibilities on the schools that they may not want," Clardy said. "Finally, I have some concerns about these tests being reported to us. Hopefully, the reporting system the state has designed will work."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services prioritized public and private K-12 schools to receive the rapid antigen tests free of charge, along with colleges and universities and long-term care facilities.

Hospitals filling up

Elsewhere in Missouri, the virus is creating grimmer outcomes.

St. Louis hospitals are filling up with coronavirus patients at an alarming rate, and experts say many of those patients are coming from other areas of the state.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City area over the past week recorded its highest number of deaths over a one-week period, with more than 80 people dying from COVID-19.

Missouri is among several states across the U.S. seeing a spike in confirmed cases and hospitalizations related to the coronavirus. The state health department on Tuesday announced 1,695 additional confirmed cases and 28 more deaths. The state has reported 172,717 cases and 2,838 deaths since the pandemic began.

Boone County surpassed triple-digit cases yet again on Tuesday, adding 104 new cases to bring the county's grand total to 6,060, with 389 cases active.

Hospitalizations statewide remain high, with 1,407 people in Missouri hospitals with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 illnesses as of Saturday, the most recent date available.

St. Louis-area hospital officials are urging people to take precautions to slow the spread of the virus, warning that the region's hospitals are at about 90% capacity.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force on Monday reported a seven-day average of 360 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, the worst since May. The seven-day average of new COVID-19 admissions was 52, the highest since early April.

“Think about what this means to you and your family member, if you get sick,” said Dr. Alex Garza, who heads the task force. “Will there be a hospital to be able to care for you? Will they have space for your family member? Will the doctors, and the nurses, and the techs be on top of their game, or will they be exhausted and fatigued?”

In the early days of the pandemic, most people hospitalized in the St. Louis region were local. Now, “We’re getting patients from everywhere,” Garza said. “We have requests for transfers from hundreds of miles away.”

Boone County hospitals may not be facing the same capacity issues as St. Louis ones, but they are experiencing a similar pattern of non-resident hospitalizations. On Tuesday, only 18 of the 89 Missourians hospitalized in the county were Boone County residents. The number of patients on ventilators rose Tuesday to reach 20, and 31 patients were in intensive care.

Across the state, the region that includes Kansas City along with Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas has recorded 735 deaths since the pandemic began. But The most recent seven-day period was the most deadly, according to data compiled by the Kansas City Star.

The newspaper reported 81 deaths for the period of Oct. 20-26, and 163 deaths since the start of October.

“We are now what looks like moving into our third wave of this outbreak and that’s very, very concerning,” said Rex Archer, director of the Kansas City Health Department. “We’re very concerned about this surge and as we move more and more indoors, this is going to become even more problematic.”

The state said a data-entry problem that skewed hospitalization numbers for more than a week was fixed on Monday.

Last week, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Service’s coronavirus dashboard had a message that said the number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 had been underreported since Oct. 17 because of “challenges entering data” to the portal used by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for collecting daily hospitalizations around the country.

It remains unclear how many other states had been affected by the HHS portal issue because some states do not use the federal agency’s data collection.

An HHS spokeswoman did not respond to a question about other states but said the issues in Missouri were caused by a need to incorporate additional data elements on the state’s dashboard.

The Associated Press and the Tribune's Gabriela Velasquez contributed to this report.

rmckinney@columbiatribune.com

573-815-1719