Erie County officials provided their weekly COVID-19 update on Tuesday, with the Omicron variant being a big talking point of the briefing.
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With the Omicron variant of COVID-19 likely on Erie County's doorstep, the talk of increased testing was also brought up on Tuesday with not just schools in the local region, but also for residents of the county.
There has recent talk for an increase in testing for COVID-19 to not only better gauge the virus and be ready for the Omicron variant, but also with the potential of putting in place a testing program instead of additional mandates and restrictions.
As of just a couple of weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the United States Food and Drug Administration were running different types of analysis to determine whether or not rapid home COVID-19 tests were able to identify the Omicron variant. It was only recently that both agencies were able to figure out that some at-home rapid COVID-19 tests can identify the variant.
With this discovery by the CDC and the FDA, that set the wheels in motion for Erie County and New York State get more of these at-home rapid tests and make them available for the local community.
"I spoke to Gov. Hochul last week, she informed me that based on the information once they had confirmation of what tests would actually be able to identify the Omicron variant, she would be sending out hundreds and thousands and millions of at-home rapid tests to be used by the counties and the municipalities to provide to their constituents," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz on Tuesday. "She announced [Monday] that five million in total will be distributed across New York State. Half of them primarily for the the school setting, but the rest to go to local municipalities to distribute locally as needed.
According to Poloncarz, Erie County is expecting "a significant supply" of these at-home rapid antigen tests to be made available. While it's not known exactly how many tests the county will get, Poloncarz says by the end of the month, they will get those tests with the hope of distributing them to local community centers, libraries, etc.
"We waited, we did not want to purchase and put a huge order in for at-home test kits that might not be able to identify the Omicron variant. We now, as of basically the last three days or so, actually know which kits can actually identify the Omicron variant," Poloncarz said.
"These will be able to identify positive Omicron variant cases. Not all over the counter rapid tests are able to identify the Omicron variant. The FDA has on its website those that they have identified that are good for identifying Omicron, and those that are not so good."
While these at-home COVID-19 tests will not be able to tell people whether they have tested positive for the Omicron variant, it will tell folks that they have tested positive for COVID-19 or a variant.
"Only a PCR test that is then genetically sequenced can, in all likelihood, identify whether you have Omicron or not," Poloncarz explained. "At least these most recent tests that have been identified by the FDA can say whether it is a positive COVID-19 case even with the Omicron variant."
However, with the at-home rapid tests, there is some concerns about the possibility of false negative tests that can be misleading to anyone who may not read instructions correctly or know enough about how these tests work.
"If you were exposed on a Saturday, you got an at-home test and took it on Sunday, it could come back negative even though you may actually have the COVID-19 virus in your system," Poloncarz said. "Then you go to the family on Monday or Tuesday, expose them in you're asymptomatic phase thinking you're safe when in fact you actually are spreading COVID-19."
"For the home tests or the over-the-counter tests, many times they can be the same test, however, those test manufacturers have applied to the FDA to be able to offer these tests for use at home," said Erie County Health Commissioner, Dr. Gale Burstein on Tuesday. "They come with instructions, however, there can be more opportunity for user error, because it's not in a controlled setting. There's not a good robust QI system in place. However, we all know the huge convenience of a home test being able to do a test whenever you want, wherever you want, in the privacy of your own home."
Burstein says the rapid antigen tests are not as sensitive as other tests provided by Erie County. If anyone happens to test negative but still have symptoms, it is strongly encouraged to get a confirmation PCR or ID NOW test to confirm that someone did not have a false negative result.
Meanwhile, Erie County continues to work with schools to ensure that students and staff are not only staying safe from COVID-19, but also being able to stay in school as much as possible.
"We are thankful the New York State Health Department has sent us a large supply of COVID-19 rapid antigen tests, and those are for schools to use for diagnostic testing," Dr. Burstein said. "So a student or a staff person finds that they're in school and they're ill, they have symptoms. They're able to go the nurse's station and get a test right there, so they'll know if they can stay in school or if they have to go home because they have COVID-19.
"We have been starting this week distributing these rapid antigen tests to all the schools that are licensed to be able to perform these tests. We've been informed fortunately by the New York State Health Department they are going to be providing us additional COVID-19 rapid antigen tests that we'll not only be able to use for diagnostic testing, but these tests that are going to be coming to us in the future we'll be able to use for test-to-stay. So we'll share the information once we know more about when we can expect the distribution of these tests."
Currently in Erie County, only one school has instituted a test-to-stay program in a pilot phase, and that happens to be the Grand Island Central School District. After more than two weeks of the program being in place in Grand Island, the reviews from the district and those associated have been nothing but positive.
In addition, the CDC has given its public endorsement of the test-to-stay policies around the country, saying they are "an encouraging public health practice to help keep our children in school."
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With test-to-stay getting the thumbs up from the CDC and the success rate it has had for schools around the country, the plan for Erie County is to expand test-to-stay for any schools interested in the program come January.
"The test-to-stay pilot with Grand Island is for the remainder of this quarter, which ends in the next day or two," Poloncarz said. "There are rules that we have in place right now, but we are also waiting to hear from New York State as to whether they're going to be changing some of these rules and then we'll have to follow a different protocol. But if a school district is interested, they should contact the Erie County Department of Health's COVID-19 school team, which I'm sure they know very well by now, and let us know of their interest in the test-to-stay program, and then we can tell them what the requirements are for the school district to do and what the county's role will be.
"The guidance that comes from New York State may actually change how we're running the program with the pilot in Grand Island."
You can listen back to the entirety of Tuesday's briefing from Erie County below:
