NEW YORK and Los Angeles are rolling out extensive Covid-19 testing programmes in schools to facilitate safe learning after negotiations with teachers’ unions.

The cities are the two biggest school districts in the United States, with over a million pupils enrolled in New York schools and 600,000 in LA’s.

New York City will test 10-20 per cent of students and staff in every building monthly.

“Every single school will have testing. It will be done every single month. It will be rigorous,” NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said on concluding talks with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).

The union had threatened strike action if schools were reopened without strict safety measures. At least 79 of the city’s Department of Education employees have died from the virus.

But it successfully negotiated the testing programme and agreement that every school will maintain a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment, including masks and disinfectant.

UFT New York City president Michael Mulgrew said the agreement was an example to the whole country.

“We now can say that New York City’s public school system has the most aggressive policies and greatest safeguards of any school system in the US,” he said.

Los Angeles has launched a $150 million (£115m) testing programme. The school year began with remote learning for all students.

The city’s school district plans to give all students and staff an initial baseline test to ensure that incidence of Covid-19 is low.

Waivers have been negotiated for some schools to allow in-person teaching for limited groups of special-needs children, while officials are considering whether to allow primary schools to apply for similar waivers.

Los Angeles County board of supervisors chair Kathryn Barger said that despite heavy investment in distance-learning technology, the disadvantages of the set-up disproportionately affect minority communities.

“All students are entitled to a free and appropriate education. For many of our students most at risk, distance learning is neither free nor appropriate,” she said. 

But United Teachers Los Angeles president Cecily Myart-Cruz said: “We know some of our most vulnerable students are more acutely impacted by remote-learning challenges. But we also know that it is those same students’ communities — predominantly communities of colour living in poverty — that are most acutely impacted by this deadly virus.”

Children now make up 10 per cent of all US Covid cases, up from 2 per cent in April.