“If we had to choreograph a whole season of solos, that didn’t seem appealing,” explained Ryan Fotter, Boston Ballet’s chief of staff, on why the organization expects to spend over $100,000 on testing during the 2020-21 season to bring about 80 dancers, rehearsal directors, and other staff into the studio to create new performances.
The ballet converted a conference room at its Boston headquarters into a testing space, while Relay turned a coatroom into a place where employees can do their own COVID test swabbing.
Since the fall, all 130 Relay employees have been back to the office at least once, and more than half come in several times a week as part of a regular rotation. Andy Porter, Relay’s chief people experience officer, said that even with vaccines on the way, testing may become the new normal for the drug maker. “Testing will be part of the regimen for the foreseeable future,” he said.
It’s ever more clear that vaccines alone won’t offer a return to normal, and that regular testing, along with masks and social distancing, are likely to become a way of life for some time. Even when herd immunity is reached in the United States, possibly this year, no one yet knows how long the vaccines will offer immunity and whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus.
Unlike his predecessor, President Biden is trumpeting testing, but his focus has been on expanding screening in K-8 schools so more can reopen for in-person learning. That still leaves the private sector on its own, and many businesses have chosen to forgo testing because the cost-benefit analysis doesn’t pencil out. That calculus, however, is shifting rapidly as test prices drop and the options grow for helping employers set up testing programs apart from the traditional health care infrastructure.
Meanwhile, a new crop of antigen tests — faster and less expensive than the molecular tests, which must be processed in labs — could be another tool to bring employees back to work safely.
For consumer-facing businesses, routine worker testing can instill confidence that where you shop, eat, or stay is COVID-free.
That’s what Unite Here Local 26′s president, Carlos Aramayo, has been pushing Boston hotels to do, but so far they have balked, telling him it’s too expensive.
“Tourism and travel and the events industry are not going to come back until the public feels comfortable and confident they won’t get sick,” said Aramayo, whose union represents hospitality and food workers.
Aramayo needs only to look to higher education to see how its investment in testing has been good for the economy.
With campuses able to bring back students, that meant most of Unite Here’s college cafeteria workers — about 1,400 in the Boston area — were able to keep their jobs throughout the pandemic, while nearly all of the roughly 10,000 members who work in casinos,…
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