Tight knit communities like colleges are viewed as high risk for Covid-19 transmission-- in Michigan, Central Michigan University and Adrian College have both become flashpoints for their counties. Some colleges are trying to get ahead of the virus, by implementing programs to better track outbreaks on their campuses.
With thousands of students, it can be a challenge to monitor for signs of the coronavirus. One method schools have tried has been testing students as they move in and determine if any students might be bringing Covid to campus.
Michael Klepser is a professor in the Ferris state University college of Pharmacy. His department played a role in implementing this kind of testing.
“With the program that we currently have in place we are testing all of the students that live in residents halls on campus. And I believe that is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 2,500 students,” said Klepser
He said this program went well, however they were unable to get rapid testing kits so results weren't as immediate as he might have liked. The rapid testing kits he said have been on high demand, especially for nursing homes, so for now the university will be using non-immediate testing kits.
Klepser said the university is looking at implementing other testing programs in the future, though nothing as widespread as the full test of students living on campus. One method they're looking at is what is known as "surveillance testing".
Surveillance testing is a method which randomly samples the population over a given period, this can help to pick up asymptomatic carriers and even given a large enough sample size it can help to model the outbreak in the given community.
Surveillance testing is still in the planning stages at Ferris, but at Lake Superior State University it is about to be implemented.
Dr. Mike Beazely is the dean of student affairs at LSSU, he said the new program identifies around 10% of students each week to be tested.
“The sampling will be drawn from on campus populations, it will be drawn also from those residing off campus, more than that we will be including employees of the university. Each of those three populations all have just as much possibility to be potential individuals who are infected with coronavirus,” said Beazely.
He explained that students would receive notification of their selection and be given a window to come and get tested. The test isn't mandatory, so while around 10% of campus will be invited to be tested each week, Beazely expects the actual weekly turnout to be closer to 5% to 7%.
Many universities like Central Michigan are offering on-campus-testing, others like SVSU are partnering with off campus health providers to offer testing to students.