Affinity Empowering and Neighborhood Villages Launch No-Cost COVID-19 Testing Program for All Massachusetts Early Care Centers

Originally Appeared in Yahoo Finance

September 21, 2021

- Operation Expanded Testing (OET) is a federal government initiative to provide fully funded surveillance COVID-19 testing to community organizations

- COVID-19 testing through OET is available to hundreds of early care centers across Massachusetts

- Enrollment into OET for Massachusetts early care centers is available at maearlyedtesting.com and for all other eligible organizations at affinitytesting.com

ALEXANDRIA, Va. and BOSTON, Sept. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Affinity Empowering, Inc., a leading provider of the most sophisticated and secure occupational, behavioral, and direct-to-consumer health services, along with non-profit Neighborhood Villages, today announced a program to offer no-cost weekly COVID-19 testing for all Massachusetts licensed early education and care programs.

The testing is being offered to both center-based and family childcare, as coordinated by Neighborhood Villages and the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC). The free COVID-19 testing is provided by Operation Expanded Testing (OET), a federally funded program that offers no-cost COVID-19 surveillance testing to schools and community organizations.

Neighborhood Villages is a systems-change non-profit organization working to realize a future in which all families have access to affordable, high-quality early education and care. The organization is partnered with the Massachusetts EEC to promote the uptake of OET surveillance testing at child-care centers across Massachusetts. Testing begins at more than 260 centers enrolled in OET through this partnership, amounting to approximately 13,000 weekly tests for students and caretakers under the same testing protocol.

"Massachusetts has made a great choice providing COVID-19 tests to child-care centers across the state through Operation Expanded Testing. Surveillance COVID-19 testing, especially tests conducted with the gold standard PCR method of detection, is such an important measure to help reduce outbreak risk and to maintain peace of mind in the community," said Anne Haslerud, Vice President of Recruitment and Enrollment at Affinity Empowering. "This is a great example of how local organizations, state and federal governments, and a company like Affinity Empowering can come together to provide a truly important service during a time of need."

"Massachusetts is the leading state in the country in offering free, comprehensive COVID testing for the child care sector," said Neighborhood Villages co-president and chief innovation officer Sarah Muncey. "As we continue to confront the Delta variant, this program is essential to keeping our care providers, children and families safe - and allowing our parents to continue to work. We are so thankful to Commissioner Aigner-Treworgy and the Department of Early Education and Care for their leadership and for dramatically expanding this program to reach thousands more families. We also want to thank our partners at Affinity Empowering for administering this program and to the Biden Administration for ensuring that that child care sector is included in this testing program."

Enrollment is open for eligible Massachusetts child-care centers. More information and sign-up details can be found at .

Advantages of Operation Expanded Testing

Affinity Empowering offers the OET program on behalf of Eurofins Clinical. Affinity and Eurofins use PCR testing, the gold standard for accurate detection of COVID-19. The PCR test used in OET has 100% sensitivity and specificity, meaning that there are no false positives or false negatives. It also has the lowest limit of detection for any authorized COVID-19 test, enabling detection of COVID-19 at its earliest stages when viral load is low.

While testing, individuals submit two samples - collected from the tip of the nose for minimal invasiveness. One sample from each individual is pooled together to expedite sample analysis. If a pool shows a positive result, the individual secondary samples from that pool are immediately analyzed. This scheme avoids the need for sample recollection and lowers the overall turnaround time for results. Through its proprietary Assure integrated technology platform, Affinity delivers COVID-19 test results with an average turnaround time of 24 hours.

About Operation Expanded Testing

Operation Expanded Testing (OET) is a federally funded program to provide no-cost, "click and go" COVID-19 surveillance testing to congregate settings, including K-12 schools, Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs), correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and select, nonprofit community centers. COVID-19 surveillance testing is recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the safe reopening of schools.

Affinity and Eurofins are coordinating OET program implementation to these institutions in 26 Northeastern and Southern states and additional territories, in agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in coordination with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

Unlike other federal programs to fund COVID-19 testing, OET has no upfront costs nor paperwork. Interested eligible parties can simply visit Affinity's and click the "Enroll Today" button and provide some basic information. Affinity will then provide the resources and training necessary to establish a COVID-19 testing program at your institution. For questions or additional information, visit the website or contact Affinity's 24/7 customer service staff directly (email: , phone: 1-844-631-0469).

About Affinity Empowering

Affinity Empowering is a leading occupational health, population, and disease management life sciences organization that specializes in providing technology-based solutions and support for overall health and wellness endeavors. In addition to providing occupational health, mental health, and cutting edge, wrap around substance use support, the company also has become a major provider of COVID-19 testing. Its Return to Normalcy program provides COVID-19 consultation, support, and conducts thousands of onsite and at home testing options to safely screen, monitor, and test populations. It currently supports numerous business partners in various fields, ranging from government contracts, universities, top Fortune 100 companies, and major film and television production companies.