COVID-19 testing required for students returning to college campuses
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — "So we are going to receive this back with a swab inside for every single student," said Carla Finkielstein, Director of the Virginia Tech Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC.
The lab will soon process COVID-19 tests for the 9,000 students who will live on the Blacksburg campus this fall. Those students must take a test between August 14 and August 23.
"It will be required that they undergo COVID testing immediately upon arrival on the campus. So we have been able to set up a testing lab and turn around these tests in pretty short order," said Dr. Michael Friedlander, Executive Director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute.
According to Friedlander the lab can process up to 1,000 tests per day and provide results in 24 hours.
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The University of Maryland recently announced it will require undergraduate online instruction for the first two weeks of the fall semester and mandate COVID testing for students and employees before they return to campus on September 14.
At George Mason University any student staying in a Mason residence hall must provide proof that they have been tested for COVID starting August 15.
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ABC7 News also checked in with Howard University which recently switched to online classes for students.
Faculty and staff who come on campus must have a negative COVID test result within seven days of their return.
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"While no one will guarantee that there won't be an outbreak or a student will show up with an infection, what we can do is our best to mitigate the circumstances," said Friedlander.
The team at the Virginia Tech lab has assembled 10,000 collection units for student COVID testing.