Read on Twitter
. @NYCMayor and @UFT Mulgrew consistently state that the reason our middle and high schools are closed, indefinitely, is a lack of testing capacity. That's a lie. 1/5 @elizashapiro @Jill_Jorgensen @JuanMaBenitez @reemadamin @AGZimmerman @ByJessicaGould
There were 120,765 kids attending MS/HS in person before the shutdown. With the 20% weekly testing requirement, that's 24,153 tests needed per weekday, or 4,830 additional tests needed per day to educate our teenagers. Sounds like a lot! 2/5
But on November 18, when MS/HS shut down, NYC performed 73,660 covid tests. On January 25, the City performed 96,807 covid tests. So over the relevant time period, the city was able to surge **23,147** additional tests, per day (amazing and unheralded work, incidentally). 3/5
If we were able to add 23K tests per day, seems the city could have found 5K. They still can. The benefit? 120K teenagers who were *already attending or had opted into school* get to resume the in-person learning they and their families had decided was right for them. 4/5
The reason our MS/HS are closed indefinitely is because @NYCSchools simply does not have the will to make it work for the 120,765 kids they've abandoned. Not because of a lack of testing capacity. Stop lying and open our middle and high schools. 5/5
