SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – As college students prepare to go home for the holidays, some schools are quickly ramping up COVID-19 testing to try to keep infections from spreading further as the coronavirus surges across the U.S.
Thousands of cases have been connected to campuses since some colleges reopened this fall, forcing students to quarantine in dorms and shifting classes online. Now, many students are heading home for Thanksgiving, raising the risk of the virus spreading among family, friends and other travelers.
“The responsibility and the reach of the impact is not just to the student body anymore, it’s to those close contacts,” said Emily Rounds, a student who helps collect data on college testing plans nationwide for the Crisis College Initiative at Davidson College.
Colleges’ pandemic plans vary widely. About one-third of four-year colleges started primarily in person this fall, the initiative’s researchers found as they tracked about 1,400 schools.
Only about 100 colleges initially tested all students once or twice a week, regardless of symptoms, as part of their back-to-school plans. Many more tested random samples of students or tested those with symptoms – neither of which is considered enough to stop the spread of the disease, said Christopher Marsicano, an education professor at Davidson who founded the project.