BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Many families packed up their cars Sunday for the start of another semester at Indiana University with one big change — COVID-19 screening for all its students.
Sunday marked the first day of students moving back into campus housing.
IU is anticipating 42,000 students coming back to its campuses. As a requirement this year, all students will be tested for COVID-19.
“This is a big operation and it has taken the incredible teamwork of a very large team to pull it off,” IU Bloomington Provost Lauren Robel said.
The university’s testing is located outside Memorial Stadium in the parking lot.
Ten days before arriving, students are required to be tested. If they test negative, they are allowed to come to campus for another round of testing.
IU’s COVID-19 testing and surveillance operations are being led by Dr. Aaron Carroll, a professor for the school of medicine. The team is using rapid-result swab tests that take about 15 to 30 minutes for results.
If a student tests negative, they can move-in. If a student tests positive, they are asked to isolate at home or in isolation housing on campus.
Throughout the semester, students will be randomly selected for saliva tests each week with a goal to do regular testing for all students. Faculty and staff will also be tested regularly.
“We are not shooting for perfection. We expect there will be positives. If you have tens of thousands of students and many more faculty and staff, we will find infections," Dr. Carroll said. "That’s how we know the system is working. Our goal is to find them earlier and keep them safer and do a better job on campus than we would otherwise do if we weren’t doing any of this work."
Students waiting for results in their cars said the process was easy and simple. Many were excited just to be back on campus again.
Carroll said the university isn’t releasing test result numbers every day but said there have been a few positive cases as of Sunday.
“The numbers have been low. We are pleased. It’s exactly where we would like to start,” Dr. Carroll said.
The nasal swab tests aren’t the most sensitive to COVID-19, but Dr. Carroll said they are the quickest and most efficient tests the university can utilize.
“We are just trying to pick up more [cases] than we otherwise could, that’s what you are hoping for in a population-level screening,” Dr. Carroll said.
Move-ins and COVID-19 testing will continue all week, with off-campus students being tested later this week.
IU is also setting up its own labs to process tests.