@Leigh22 Villanova started asymptomatic testing last week. They tested all the nursing students and got very few positives.
@waverlywizzard Speaking of Boston Colleges’s weak surveillance testing, I just read about an outbreak. As I mentioned before, without other methods (like sewage testing)testing less than 50% of the college population every week will not control outbreaks early enough. They are saying that their goal is to test 3000-4000 community members this week - that’s less than 50% of students, faculty and staff. Not enough (IMHO).
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh called BC’s outbreak a “serious matter,” and said the city has been working with BC, Newton and the state to make sure it’s “addressed in a swift and thorough way.”
“This is a serious matter and the City of Boston has been in active communication and working with Boston College, the City of Newton, and the State on this matter to ensure it is addressed in a swift and thorough way, and that impacted students are kept safe,” Walsh said in a statement.
“Again, I want to remind all residents in our community, including students, to follow the public health protocols and guidance put in place, and make every effort to do their part to keep themselves, and their community healthy and safe,” he added.
Newton, Boston and state health officials on Saturday requested that they take over contact tracing for both on- and off-campus students. BC agreed to the change.
Officials also urged BC to boost its virus testing. BC tested about 4,600 people two weeks ago and then 2,900 last week. Next week, they intend to test between 3,000 to 4,000 BC community members.
“In the coming days, we will be continuing to focus on their testing protocols,” Fuller wrote, adding, “We continue to recommend that Boston College adjust their testing practices and increase the number.”
The president of North Georgia Technical College, Mark Ivester, died after several weeks in the hospital battling COVID-19, the college announced Sunday. He was barely 57 years old.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/14/college-president-dies-after-covid-battle
Wow. That is terribly sad news. I listen to cable news constantly and heard nothing about his case. I wonder how many other faculty/staff hospitalizations are being under-reported?
These Covid deaths are heartbreaking… as someone who personally knows people affected by the death of someone with Covid, its terrible. But why would staff hospitalizations be reported by name? That’s private information. Do we know that Mr Ivester acquired Covid at his workplace?
I don’t know if Boston College is using Broad but they seem to be having a few testing issues compared to BU and Northeastern.
@vpa2019 BC is using the Broad Institute but it seems as if they might have a different arrangement than some of the other colleges that are using Broad. They certainly aren’t on the same testing regimen as the schools that are testing all students twice a week.
Yes Broad listed a while back that BC contracts with Broad Institute for testing. But one wonders what sort of testing protocol BC chose to contract and pay for, because other Broad participant colleges have paid for and received much more robust testing protocol including mandatory bi weekly testing of asymptomatics and all students. I do not think it is a shortcoming of the Broad Institute because they have delivered expanded results and timeline for so many other colleges.
Just as a clarification…I wasn’t casting doubt on Broad delivering timely test results. It appears to me that BC isn’t implementing the same testing protocols as many of the surrounding Mass and NE schools.
I suggest that the framework being used by my kid’s college is a good one. For the “big picture” (i.e., should they shut down) they look at two questions. First, whether they are outstripping their capacity to test, isolate and quarantine. And second, is there evidence of increased community spread in their community?
As I’ve mentioned before, Hope did pre-arrival testing and is doing surveillance (1% per day) and symptomatic testing, supplemented by wastewater testing. Also, athletes in “medium to high risk” sports are tested more frequently. But they are not testing everyone every week, and most kids are in doubles.
Since arrival, their surveillance/symptomatic testing results have gone like this:
Week 1: 0 (0%)
Week 2: 4 (1.29%)
Week 3: 6 (1.33%)
Week 4: 6 (1.77%)
The last email update was on 9/11 and said they have eight active positive cases in isolation, 24 close contacts are in quarantine. So far those are numbers that they can handle. And they are in constant contact with the county health department which reports that they do not see community spread.
Agreed. Dinning hall servers or dorm janitors are more than likely to go as unsung collateral damage.
I don’t mean reported by the school; I mean reported by the media.
It’s a good question ‘how do we know if a school is doing well’ and I wondered myself after looking at the number of tests done at Purdue last week (5000) vs at Elon (400)(Purdue is about 7 times as large as Elon for enrollment).
I admit my own ‘doing well’ really just meant: Still open, having some classes in person, not super locked down, haven’t had to take any additional measures since opening such as quarantining everyone, moving remote, clearing out dorms. Elon posts their number of active cases and number of kids in quarantine, and has a chart with a bunch of metrics about when they will take stricter measures, and they have not had to move to a stricter/higher level so far.
But right, ‘doing well’ does depend on testing and compliance. A school not doing much testing, and kids not complying (with symptom screening and all of the other covid rules), could skate along I imagine, until maybe what? A large number of faculty becomes positive? Or is random testing of a portion of the kids a good enough indicator of the general virus level?
@homerdog - I don’t understand the drumbeat of some to “test everyone, every week.” Not only is it expensive, it is not necessary. The medical profession does clinical trials all the time using the statistics powered to provide a robust answer. I haven’t done the math, but my guess is that the epidemiologists at ND are using this method to determine how many random “surveillance” tests they need to do on a daily basis.
At this point, they have done more surveillance testing than diagnostic (7000 to 4000). In the past 45 days, they have tested the equivalent of every student, twice. Once before move in and now they have tested another 11000, close to the full number on campus. In the surveillance group, they recently saw 12 positives. I conclude these are from Labor Day weekend, although they all had classes on Monday. The 7-day average in this group is 0.7%. In the seven days prior to these 3 days of cases, they had 0 cases.
To answer your question, “Does it matter?” I submit that they have a testing plan in place that is finding cases in the student population. After the game this weekend, will there be more? Probably. Will it be enough to force a change in direction? We will have to see.
My DS says the student body as a whole is taking the process seriously. He is still going to class and playing in the band.
I don’t think that colleges have to test everyone at least twice/per week to be doing well managing Covid. There are many factors (location, rates in the surrounding community, number of off-campus students) that influence how often testing should be done, and modifications to the plans should be made based on testing results throughout the semester.
I know a number of people have been critical/skeptical of Vanderbilt’s plan to invite all students back but it’s going pretty well so far. It’s not a great college experience for some, especially freshmen and transfer students. However, they are doing a lot of things well and my S is very happy to be back, despite the restrictions and lack of fun. They are the only SEC school that decided not to allow any fans to attend football games (all other SEC schools are allowing between 20-25% of fans).
Vanderbilt has completed three weeks of classes and are testing all students (on and off-campus) once/week. Here are the recent numbers:
week of Aug. 24th, 4,101 tests completed, 1.27% positive
week of Aug. 31st, 5,802 tests completed, .67% positive
week of Sept. 7th, 6288 tests completed, .46% positive
S19 got his flu shot on campus last week, and I’m really hoping the Covid numbers can stay manageable.
@suzyQ7 in response to your quoting the Boston Herald article “Newton, Boston and state health officials on Saturday requested that they take over contact tracing for both on- and off-campus students. BC agreed to the change.”
I think this will be helpful. I mean didn’t the state (MA) just re call up contact tracers who were laid off after the surge? It will help to have trained ppl do this as it is an art from what I have read.
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I feel like the test everyone every week mantra stems, in part from, what we hear from the media and many “experts “ day in and day out: that “there isn’t enough testing” and that “the only way society can operate at pre Covid levels and safety is for everyone to be able to test themselves daily before they leave the house”. If that’s the standard we have to meet for a safe and functional society why should colleges be deemed able to operate safely using a lessor testing standard?
To be frank I don’t know what the proper amount of testing should be and there are so many different testing schemes that it’s difficult to keep track. IMHO it boils down to risk tolerance for both the college and it’s surrounding community. So you have places like UNC and Colorado college and Gettysburg that close down with fewer cases and places like Alabama and Georgia that are staying the course.
@Leigh22 - Homerdog’s was commenting on my post about Notre Dame. They are doing surveillance testing. They have done 7000 surveillance tests compared to 4000 diagnostic tests. The 7-day overall positivity rate is 2%, driven largely by 4 days of increased positive tests (9/8 to 9/11). The surveillance 7-day positive rate is 0.7%.
Still no hospitalizations at ND. Estimated that they have 46 active cases right now.
We will see what this week holds.
The problem is that the available tests are not the ones that are optimal for public health purposes. Low cost instant tests that can be done each day that someone enters campus or an event involving gathering with other people would be far more effective for public health purposes than tests that are expensive, require health care workers to administer them, and/or take a day to a week to get results. The goal is to find presymptomatic or asymptomatic spreaders before they can infect others; tests that can be done only every few days or which take days to get results are not effective in this respect.
Tests with delayed results would be sort of like finding out that you need to close the door after the virus has escaped.