Maine schools are now eligible to request free at-home COVID-19 tests to distribute to students and staff.
By way of federal funding to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, every school in Maine will be eligible to receive an at-home testing kit for each student and staff member at its facility. The kits will contain five to six rapid tests, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Schools will be able to request kits until April 15, and the test kits will start being shipped on April 25. Depending on the size of the order, the tests may take several weeks to arrive.
Nearly 120,000 COVID tests have been already distributed to child care centers across the state through the Maine DHHS, and the department has distributed approximately 260,000 free tests via mail order to Mainers across the state through Project ACT.
As of Thursday, positive case reports and hospitalizations have largely stayed steady over the past week, with an average of 204 new positive cases reported daily since April 1.
Hospitalization numbers rose slightly above 100 on Tuesday, but have since dipped back down, with 95 Mainers hospitalized as of Thursday.