As of Sunday, November 15, 2020, the United States has passed the 11 million mark in COVID-19 cases and NVU has reached a total of 6 cases, most of which have happened in the last 2 weeks. This number does not come as a surprise to me, not only because of the recent trend being seen around Vermont and the rest of the country, but due to the lack of enforcement of testing protocols at NVU.
Currently, as the policy stands, NVU students, faculty, and staff who are on-campus are offered bi-weekly COVID testing voluntarily except for a small random selection of the NVU community which is asked to complete surveillance testing. But as cases have continued to rise nationwide and in our schools, why has this policy remained in place?
We should be moving to a model to reflect that of other colleges such as Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire, which mandates that all students, faculty, and staff get tested every week or they are no longer allowed on-campus until they get tested by the school. I have witnessed this firsthand as a frontline worker for their testing center, helping assist in testing over 3,000 people weekly on the KSC campus. So far this semester the campus has successfully tested over 33,000 students, faculty, and staff members with only 19 positive cases being reported since the start of the semester.
Many of you may wonder how they are able to keep their cases so low for a large population of people getting tested, but it comes down to one simple answer. They have listened to the scientists and have acted on their words. When a person comes into the testing center, we verify all their information and have them take a symptom survey before getting tested. If a student answers “no” to having COVID symptoms they are sent through the normal testing line to get tested and then continue their way. But if a student answers “yes” to having any symptoms, whether minuscule or serious, they are immediately pulled aside and tested separately, then get sent to quarantine. Students must quarantine for 10 days and test negative for COVID before being able to resume their normal schedule and if they test positive for COVID or come in contact with a COVID positive person they must quarantine for 14 days and test negative.
This policy of mandatory testing and strict quarantining has allowed for the case level to remain at low levels throughout the semester even as students are still able to continue most normal campus activities. The vigilance of KSC should be a model that NVU follows going into the spring semester, no matter the number of cases. So far the policies at NVU have been good, but we need to do better for the sake of not only our students, faculty, and staff, but also as an example for other schools in or out of Vermont to follow.
Mandatory testing and 10-day quarantining need to be a part of this plan. These mostly voluntary tests simply will not cut it anymore, especially as the case count rises. We need to be treating this as if everyone is an asymptomatic individual and having them get tested every week or every other week. The earlier we can detect a COVID case, the sooner we can isolate that individual, conduct contact tracing, and control the spread of this virus. We as an NVU community need to come together to support this notion of mandatory testing and take 10 minutes out of our day to get tested and keep our campuses safe and free of COVID.
Feature Photo by Alexandra Huff || NVU students and employees must check-in before getting a COVID-19 test swab.