Wellness Center

January 23, 2021 - Weekly Testing: Important Update

 

Dear Campus Community,

We wanted to send an update regarding the first week of testing. Our first sample collection went smoothly on Wednesday and Thursday, and we will begin our second week of testing on Monday, January 25. Unfortunately, shipping delays that have plagued all package carriers since the holidays have caused a delay in receipt of our samples at the laboratory. We have begun to receive results, and we will contact those testing positive as soon as possible. For technical reasons, positive results take longer for the lab to process than negative ones. We are working hard to get an estimate of when we might receive complete results, and we will keep the campus community informed.

We recognize the value of rapid turnaround, and the ability to have greater local control of our testing procedures. We are pleased to confirm that we will begin some pilot testing next week using rapid antigen testing, which we will then phase in along with our PCR testing beginning in February. We are grateful for your patient understanding of the delays we are currently experiencing. The delay makes it all the more important for the full campus community to maintain extra vigilance during the beginning of this semester.

Sincerely,

Mark Schneider
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College
Chair of the Virus Task Force