Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon is answering the call for COVID-19 testing centers for students as parents struggle to have their children checked promptly to meet district demands.
As urgent care facilities have lengthy wait times, if they have appointments open at all, parents are struggling to check their child’s runny nose so they can attend school. Many schools are requiring a COVID-19 negative test for symptomatic children to return to class.
This spills over to the workforce strain as working parents search for testing locations and stay home with kids that are not allowed to return to schools without the test.
In response, McMahon says the county is creating a program where parents can take their children to be tested and get quick test results.
“Keeping in-person learning going is one of our administrations top priorities. We recognize this is now a challenge. These are school district policies that they come back with a negative test. So we’ll help build up that infrastructure again to meet that challenge,” said McMahon.
McMahon says he can only have accredited people testing now that the emergency use order is expired, so there is a small workforce hurdle, but his goal is to have the testing available by the end of this week.
