OGDEN, Utah – Universities and colleges are mass testing students after the Utah System of Higher Education released a COVID-19 Intensive Testing Plan. This now replaces the previous requirement of testing students every two weeks.
Weber State University and Utah State University are just a couple of the institutions rolling out re-entry testing for students and staff, following the holiday break.
“Which we will do 5 days a week at about 5 hours a day all the way through from the fourth of January to the 22nd,” said Dane LeBlanc, the Director of Public Safety for Weber State University.
The COVID-19 Intensive Testing Plan issued by the Utah System of Higher Education informs institutions, all on-campus residents, and any student who takes at least one in-person course must be tested within the first 10 days of the start of classes in 2021.
“I need to be prepared to probably administer nothing less than 7,000 test kits in the first couple weeks,” said LeBlanc.
Institutions must also perform randomized surveillance testing, to understand campus infection trends and find positive cases.
“We’ve been testing for quite some time now, actually we’ve done over 17,500 tests at this point,” said Ellis Bruch, the Director of Emergency Management at Utah State University.
Leaders at Utah State University are also mass testing students at its remote locations.
“Got to coordinate a little bit as far as those smaller, rural campuses as to where those people come up and do some testing or maybe some face to face classes, and get them tested as well,” said Bruch.
It is mandatory for institutions to participate, but students aren’t required to. University leaders say they expect to see compliance.
“It’s important that we understand what the impact of the virus is and the spread may be on our campus community, so we can more effectively manage it,” added LeBlanc.
Both Weber State and Utah State will continue to perform focused testing, like wastewater testing, contact tracing and regular athletic testing.