In fact, the community positivity rate would have to be 3 to 7 percent for true positives to outweigh false positives. That means for the last 52 weeks in California, a positive COVID-19 test would have been more likely to be inaccurate than accurate, for anywhere from 38 to 45 of those weeks.

Despite adopting a large scale school testing program, California students missed more days of school in January 2022 than students in Arizona, Florida and Texas, for no established benefit to student or community health. From the CDC, through April 2022, California’s 23,000 cases per 100,000 people compares to Florida’s 27,000 per 100,000 where no such universal school testing program was adopted. California and Florida have also had comparable age-adjusted COVID mortality rates.

Furthermore, school staff will be burdened with yet another responsibility at a time when many districts are facing unprecedented staffing shortages. Multiple states abandoned school test-and-trace programs during Omicron due to overwhelmed staff and massive student absentee rates. The resources needed to perform this testing could be better directed at programs to improve mental health, facilities and educational resources to end the chronic absenteeism related to ineffective COVID-19 testing and quarantine procedures, which exacerbate learning loss from the extended closures.