UNC-Chapel Hill will offer daily COVID-19 testing for students who don’t have symptoms
UNC-Chapel Hill students will now be able to get a daily COVID-19 test through Campus Health even if they don’t have symptoms.
The new Prospective Evaluation Testing program is designed for students who are still living in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area.
Starting Wednesday, students living in campus dorms and residence halls can get a free, voluntary COVID-19 test every morning in an effort to preemptively identify cases or clusters in campus housing. UNC will also begin a free, voluntary testing program for students living in the area but off campus in the next few weeks.
Between 1,300 and 1,600 UNC students are still working on campus or living in campus housing, including athletes, international students and others who requested hardship waivers. In a typical year, about 10,000 undergraduate students live off-campus and most live in the greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro community, according to UNC.
Voluntary COVID-19 testing program on campus
When UNC reopened with in-person classes and on-campus housing, the CDC did not recommend mass testing, Ken Pittman, executive director of UNC’s Campus Health.
But now, with this smaller group, widespread testing of asymptomatic individuals is a good opportunity to keep the remaining students as safe as possible, he said.
Pittman said “out of abundance of caution” UNC recommends all these students get tested on a weekly basis. That allows the university to identify students who are asymptomatic and knowingly positive early on and provide them isolation space and support services and identify their close contacts, perhaps within their residence hall.
“We’re at a number [of students] now that it makes sense for us to do that at an ongoing basis,” Pittman said.
The testing center at Campus Health is set up to conduct nasal swab tests for students while maintaining social distancing. Students should make an appointment in the morning to reduce the amount of people in the space, but walk-ins are welcome. Pittman said they can test four to six students in five minutes.
UNC will also continue to do symptomatic and close contact testing in the afternoons.
With everyone getting tested at Campus Health, there could be some backup with long lines, but Pittman said he’d view that as a good thing.
That means students are participating and then UNC could maybe pivot to a different location or different kind of testing approach, he said. If there isn’t much participation, Pittman said UNC might go to residence halls and set up a testing site outside on a regular basis.
“The goal is going to be to try some different things to see if we can have as many students as possible participate,” Pittman said. “So that ultimately we are creating a safer campus environment.”
Mass testing of the UNC community
UNC is also partnering with the Orange County Health Department to offer drive-thru COVID-19 testing clinics for employees every Wednesday at the R7 parking lot on MLK Jr. Blvd. The clinics will run from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. starting this Wednesday, Sept. 9.
The daily testing is voluntary, but the university wants all students still living in the area to participate, UNC Provost Bob Blouin said in a campus-wide message.
“We have a responsibility to each other and the local community to limit the spread of COVID-19 and detecting asymptomatic cases or symptomatic cases early is one of the best ways we can do that,” Blouin said. “We ask that you play your part in keeping those around you safe.”
UNC-Chapel Hill said it will evaluate participation in the first two weeks and will offer testing throughout the semester.
The university will also test football players three times during game weeks this fall.
Duke University’s mass testing strategy has helped keep coronavirus cases on campus relatively low. All undergraduate students were tested before they could move into the dorms, and graduate students were also tested before classes started.
Duke has also used pool surveillance testing of asymptomatic students and employees and has administered more than 23,800 tests to students, faculty and staff. Researchers say this tactic helps Duke quickly identify who has COVID-19, where the virus is on campus and how it’s being spread, for example in a particular residence hall or class.
This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 6:23 PM.
