Here’s why Utah’s COVID-19 testing in schools went from national model to abandoned failure

This investigative story was a collaboration between the Salt Lake Tribune and the Documenting COVID-19 project at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and MuckRock. The story describes how a K-12 COVID-19 testing program originally pioneered in Utah failed to prevent transmission in schools during the fall 2021 semester, after it was neutered by the state legislature.

The two lead reporters were Betsy Ladyzhets (Documenting COVID-19) and Erin Alberty (Salt Lake Tribune). In addition to reporting and writing, Betsy produced two data visualizations to accompany the story based on data from the Utah Department of Health.

Read the full story at the Salt Lake Tribune (short version) and/or at MuckRock (long version), published March 7, 2022. And find the underlying data and documents here.

Last school year, Utah’s Test to Stay program drew national attention as a novel strategy to prevent COVID outbreaks. But in fall 2021, the program entirely collapsed. @erinalberty and I dug into why, for @sltrib / @19Documenting: (1/12) pic.twitter.com/coho1YgTwP

— betsy ladyzhets 📊 (@betsyladyzhets) March 7, 2022