{"id":57229,"date":"2020-08-31T17:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T14:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/this-university-created-its-own-covid-19-test-and-is-testing-students-twice-a-week\/"},"modified":"2020-08-31T17:37:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T14:37:00","slug":"this-university-created-its-own-covid-19-test-and-is-testing-students-twice-a-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/this-university-created-its-own-covid-19-test-and-is-testing-students-twice-a-week\/","title":{"rendered":"#This university created its own COVID-19 test and is testing students twice a week"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#This university created its own COVID-19 test and is testing students twice a week<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Over the roughly week and a half that Ian Katsnelson has been back at his college, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the junior has developed a \u201cmini-competition\u201d with his friends to see who can finish the process of taking their COVID-19 tests the fastest. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardest part for sure is garnering enough saliva,\u201d Katsnelson said of the rapid saliva test, which was created by scientists at the school. He\u2019s perfecting his strategy for his trip<\/a>s to the tents where testing takes place: \u201cI\u2019ve built up my saliva in line before I\u2019ve even gotten inside the tent, so I can get in and get out real quick.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hallie Workman, a PhD candidate in communications at U of I said, \u201cthere\u2019s a lot of scouting that goes on\u201d as students try to find out which of the more than a dozen testing tents on campus have the shortest line. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have my tent in my time of day that always works well,\u201d Workman, 30, said. \u201cYou just sit there trying not to make eye contact with people as you dribble spit into a tube.\u201d <\/p>\n

These were just some of the rituals that marked an unusual first week of classes at the University of Illinois, which is requiring students, faculty and staff accessing campus to get tested for COVID-19 twice a week as part of its reopening plan. <\/p>\n

\u201cA defining moment\u201d for the school<\/strong>
<\/br><\/p>\n

\"A<\/img>
A testing staff member explains how to give a saliva sample as University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana students arriving on campus take a COVID-19 test at the State Farm Center, one of the testing stations across campus.<\/span>UI Public Affairs: Fred Zwicky<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As colleges across the country have sent students home or back to remote classes amid COVID outbreaks, officials at the University of Illinois are hopeful that their app<\/a>roach to mitigating the pandemic\u2019s spread on campus \u2014 which includes a test developed at the school that is now being performed under the Federal Drug Administration\u2019s emergency use authorization \u2014 will be enough to keep students in some in-person classes through November. It\u2019s not a small undertaking. The school had 51,000 students in the fall of 2019.<\/p>\n

Since July 6, the school has processed 121,333 COVID tests and in the five days leading up to Friday, which marked the end of the first week of classes, the school administered 47,075 tests and had a 0.75 percent positivity rate. For context, there were roughly 730,000 COVID tests administered in the entire US on a recent August day, according to Johns Hopkins University\u2019s Coronavirus Resource Center. On Aug. 24, U of I administered more than 17,000 tests alone. <\/p>\n

So far, the number of positive cases is in line with what the school\u2019s modelers predicted \u2014 well under 400 cases in the week before classes began. The next couple of weeks will be a \u201cdefining moment\u201d for U of I as it works to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on campus and in the community, said Robert Jones, the school\u2019s chancellor. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that people are watching,\u201d he told MarketWatch.<\/p>\n

And indeed, according to Joshua Salomon, the director of the Prevention Policy Modeling Lab at Stanford University, \u201cpeople are really going to be watching this carefully,\u201d describing the efforts the school has taken as \u201cencouraging.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s going to succeed,\u201d he added. \u201cWhat we do know is that the likelihood of succeeding without testing is very small.\u201d <\/p>\n

U of I is likely the only university testing students at this frequency<\/strong>
<\/br>
\nAt many universities that have reopened their campuses for in-person instruction, students may have been tested upon reentry to university housing or campus more broadly and may be subject to random screening. But models from researchers at Yale School of Public Health and U of I, indicate that in order to prevent an outbreak on a college campus \u2014 and not just monitor one \u2014 students and those interacting with them regularly need to be tested multiple times per week. <\/p>\n

U of I may be the only university in the country hewing to that standard. Officials will know around Sept. 25, one month and one day after the start of classes, if their efforts have worked, said Rebecca Lee Smith, an associate professor of pathobiology at U of I who is part of the team that developed the school\u2019s testing and other protocols. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be keeping track of how well we\u2019re doing going from test results to isolation to contact tracing and quarantine,\u201d Smith said. They\u2019ll also be looking out for new positive cases, a sign of community spread. The outcome that they\u2019re hoping for \u201cis to minimize the infections, get it under control and to protect the health of campus and the community,\u201d Smith said. <\/p>\n

The school began working to prepare for the fall semester shortly after classes went remote in the spring, said Martin Burke, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois and chair of the SHIELD committee, the team that is guiding the university\u2019s approach to reopening. They realized relatively quickly that in order to bring students back to campus, they would need to test frequently and get results back rapidly, something that wasn\u2019t going to be possible with a nasal swab test. <\/p>\n

That led to what Burke described as a \u201cManhattan Project-style effort,\u201d at the university to develop their own test. Ultimately they were able to do so in about six weeks, he said. Now the school is working to expand access to the test to the rest of the state of Illinois and even to other areas of the country and around the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cTesting is not a silver bullet, but it\u2019s a very powerful component,\u201d Burke said. <\/p>\n

In addition to the testing, the school developed an app where students, faculty and staff receive test results and reminders and a boarding pass-style image indicating a negative COVID test that allow them access to campus buildings. Users can also enable the app to notify them when they\u2019ve been in close proximity to someone who tested positive for COVID through the use of an anonymized Bluetooth scanning system. <\/p>\n

U of I is also taking many of the same steps as other campuses \u2014 moving large lecture courses online, moving smaller in-person courses to large rooms to allow for social<\/a> distancing and requiring masks. The school also has \u201cevery high expectation\u201d of students, Jones said. \u201cBy agreeing to come back and be here that they have to take ownership to keep themselves safe.\u201d Those who are participating in on-campus activities and don\u2019t follow testing and isolation guidelines could be subject to student discipline. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still very much in the middle of a raging pandemic\u201d<\/strong>
<\/br>
\nFor a university to have a shot at reopening successfully, it needs to hold classes online or outside when possible, have a good system for testing and contact tracing and have clear and transparent metrics for when it will change course, Salomon said. (Asked about what would trigger a move to remote instruction, Jones said \u201cone of the key metrics, we\u2019re keeping our eye on is the number of positive cases.\u201d)<\/p>\n

All of these are costly and administratively challenging undertakings. Jones said his best \u201cguesstimate\u201d is that the school\u2019s testing component alone will cost $7 to $10 million per semester. But a major obstacle to any successful reopening is just the status of the spread of the virus itself, Salomon said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still very much in the middle of a raging pandemic,\u201d he said. \u201cWith that amount of transmission in communities and bringing together students from around the country, we know that there will be people infected upon arrival. It raises the bar on what needs to be done to interrupt transmission and cut it off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Called an audible and held class on Zoom<\/strong>
<\/br>
\nDuring the first week of classes, when the school onboarded tens of thousands of students, \u201cthe main hiccup\u201d in its system was turning test results around fast enough so that students, faculty and staff would have access to buildings they needed to be in for class, Smith said. Those who haven\u2019t had a negative test result in the last four days can\u2019t get into university buildings, except their own residence hall. Still, the school has been turning test results around \u201cwell within\u201d the 48-hour window they\u2019ve promised, she said. <\/p>\n

Workman was one of those affected by the hiccup. She got tested on a Monday, which was one of the testing days assigned to her by the school, but didn\u2019t get her results back in time to teach her 8 a.m. Tuesday class in person. She \u201chad to call an audible and tell my class we were meeting on Zoom.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the two public speaking classes she was teaching started last week, roughly 5 percent of her students couldn\u2019t attend because they\u2019d tested positive for the virus, Workman said. That\u2019s one metric Workman said she\u2019ll be keeping an eye on as she evaluates whether to keep teaching in person. If enough students can\u2019t attend class face-to-face because of quarantine or isolation, she\u2019ll transition to remote instruction, though her preference is to continue teaching in-person classes \u2014 the widespread testing has made her feel comfortable doing so. <\/p>\n

Owen Stephenson was eager to come to campus for his freshman year to gain some independence, even if he would be taking most of his classes online. So far, he\u2019s felt like the testing has gone smoothly; he received his first two test results on the same day he tested and his only quibble was a 45-minute wait on a weekend when there are fewer testing tents available. <\/p>\n

The required testing is part of what makes Stephenson feel like he can keep himself safe, regardless of other students\u2019 behavior. \u201cTheir testing is the only thing that sets them apart from other universities trying to go back,\u201d he said of U of I\u2019s plan. <\/p>\n

From her observations in class, Workman said it seems as if students are committed to making the school\u2019s reopening program work because they want to stick around for the semester. Still, she said, the changes to the college experience required during this time \u2014 more rules for engaging on campus, more online courses than typical \u2014 have left her students so drained that she ended a recent class 20 minutes early. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey had this feeling that once they were finally able to get back on campus, that life would feel more normal and it\u2019s not.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

If you want to read more Living News<\/a> articles, you can visit our General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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