#Bill de Blasio announces new weekly COVID-19 school testing

Students and staff at New York City public schools will be tested every week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday — a day after the city’s teachers union demand ramped up testing frequency. 

“We will now go to weekly testing. We’ll be testing in elementary, middle and high school each school every week,” said de Blasio at his daily press briefing, held remotely from City Hall. “That will allow more kids to safely remain in the classrooms.”

The new policy will go into effect Sept. 27, he said.

The announcement came after on Sunday United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew called on the mayor and his schools chief to replace the current testing frequency — wherein 10 percent of Big Apple public school staff and students are tested for the virus every other week — with a test every week.

“While so far our public schools have successfully reopened, I am concerned that this year’s reduced frequency of COVID testing means that thousands of children will spend days in classrooms without the early warning system that last year made our schools among the safest places in the community,” he wrote in a letter.

City Hall almost immediately agreed to the UFT’s proposal.

“This is an increase from our biweekly policy already in place,” Schools Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter said Monday morning.

Meanwhile, the mayor said that beginning next Monday — the day the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Department of Education staff as well as childcare workers is set to go into effect — the city will relax its quarantine protocols for public school students.

“We will change the quarantine approach and will align to the CDC guidance on that,” de Blasio explained. “When there is a positive test in a classroom, the unvaccinated students in the classroom will not have to quarantine, if they are masked and three-feet distanced.”