WESTPORT — With COVID numbers rising in town, Westport Public Schools is offering free weekly testing for unvaccinated students in grades K-6.

Federal funding, through the state Departments of Education and Public Health, is affording a “program to quickly identify cases and reduce the risk of school-based COVID-19 transmission,” Suzanne Levasseur, supervisor of health services, wrote in an email to parents of K-6 students on Wednesday.

“The test will be an anterior shallow nasal swab PCR test that only includes the lower nasal area,” she wrote. “Each participating child will be swabbed weekly at school.”

Earlier this week Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice told families that, given an increase in numbers of positive cases being seen in schools among staff and students, he is going to provide more frequent updates on school-related cases.

On Friday the Westport-Weston Health District reported an increase of 18 new cases in Westport.

According to the state data base, as of Friday Westport has had 2,014 total cases, with 2,427 positive tests reported from among 80,552 tests given.

Westport has seen a total of 31 COVID-related deaths amongst the reported 8,424 COVID-related deaths in Connecticut, according to state figures.

According to state figures more than 70 percent of the 2,671 new COVID-19 cases in Connecticut during the last week came in people who were not fully vaccinated, while the other close-to-30 percent are breakout cases.

“We anticipate testing to start in the upcoming weeks,” Levasseur wrote, with the district assigned Progressive Diagnostics by the state as a testing partner.

She said the test results will initially be pooled in groups of five different students.

“If a pool of specimens tests positive, individual PCR tests … will be conducted with the same testing samples,” she wrote. “In the event that a ‘pooled’ sample is positive, the five students in that pool will be asked to remain out of school for the additional 24 hours until the positive individual case is identified.”

Levasseur provided this link for more information on Progressive Diagnositics.

Also, for those who want their children to be tested, this link to a consent form was provided.