Increase Wisconsin COVID-19 testing/tracing to safeguard Back-To-School 2020

We the undersigned ask that the State of Wisconsin and the Evers Administration increase resources for community testing and contact tracing of COVID-19 to every county in the state, in advance of public schools re-opening for in-person education for the 2020-21 school year. This is in light of the number of cases increasing rapidly statewide, with most counties now classified as "high" for virus activity by DHS and the CDC. Masks and social distancing are only one component of re-opening schools safely. The critical need for increased testing and contact tracing statewide is woefully lacking, and is out of the purview of local school districts. Therefore, a key component to keeping communities safe is the State of Wisconsin's function and responsibility for increased testing and contact tracing statewide, and must be accomplished in order for schools to function safely. We base our expectations on the following scientific guidelines:

The State's current testing efforts are currently not even close to meeting objective metrics.

• Many counties do not even have testing available, and many more have only one site serving an entire county (https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/community-testing.htm).
• Wisconsin is currently only testing at approximately half of its capacity. On July 16, approximately 13,000 tests were conducted. Daily capacity is over 24,000 and increasing (https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/data.htm).
• Wisconsin's 7-day average positivity rate for tests is 7% as of July 16. This shows that the virus spread is not under control, and that more testing needs to be done in order to identify potential new areas of outbreak in order to target prevention and mitigation efforts (https://covidactnow.org/state/WI?s=712117).

Contact tracing outside urban areas is virtually non-existent. This situation puts students, teachers, staff, nurses, and whole communities at risk for sudden and uncontrollable outbreaks of COVID-19, if schools were to re-open under these conditions. Reliance on temperature screening to identify potential carriers is insufficient, as the virus is spread largely from asymptomatic/presymptomatic individuals – particularly in the case of children and adolescents.

• CDC standards for contract tracing are to ensure that each person identified as testing positive undergoes thorough contact tracing within 48 hours of a positive test result (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/contact-tracing/contact-tracing-plan/contact-tracing.html).
• CDC standard is that individuals identified as having contact with the infected individual are notified and provided with testing information from public health authorities within 24 hours after being identified.
• Wisconsin is only meeting the above standards in 15% of cases (https://covidactnow.org/state/WI?s=712117).

Specifically, we ask that the State of Wisconsin meet the following, measurable metrics:

• Every county in the state to have testing capacity that is easily accessible to any person who wants and/or needs a test. For larger counties (in area), and more densely populated counties, this will require multiple sites to reduce wait times and ensure accessibility.
• Every county in the state to have contact tracing capacity to ensure that they meet CDC standards.