Pilots Prevent
May 4, 2021
As Spring Semester winds down and students return home for the summer, UP’s COVID-19 testing program will pivot from a mandatory surveillance program to a decentralized, voluntary testing program beginning Monday, May 10.
“Vaccinations are increasing and the number of students, staff, and faculty on campus will vary—but still be small—throughout the summer,” says Matt Rygg, associate vice president for student development. “This new testing strategy will meet our needs and allow for easy access to tests for our campus community.”
Abbot BinaxNOW testing kits will be available free of charge to students, staff, and faculty through the School of Nursing, Office of Residence Life, and Campus Safety. Community members are encouraged to use these testing kits as needed, and report positive cases at https://www.up.edu/pilotsprevent/.
Carbon Health will no longer provide weekly surveillance tests on campus and the campus community will no longer have access to the Carbon Health app. Instead, all community members are required to use the Campus Clear app to monitor their symptoms on days they come to campus.
“We’ve found the Campus Clear app to be a helpful tool in the event where we have needed to do contact tracing,” says Rygg. The Office of Residence Life and Environmental Health & Safety will continue monitoring submissions and following up with community members reporting symptoms.
Other safety measures on campus, including social distancing and mask requirements, remain unchanged. Masks are required in all public areas on campus—including outdoors—and 6-feet of distance between individuals is encouraged. The University will continue to follow state and county guidelines for occupancy for dining, gyms, and other public areas.
The University’s quarantine and isolation protocols will also remain unchanged. Space in the University’s residence halls is being held for students who may need it, and the Offices of Residence Life, Human Resources, and Environmental Health & Safety will continue to coordinate for contact tracing as necessary.
“Thanks to the vigilance of our campus community we had a very low positivity rate for COVID-19 Spring Semester,” says Rygg. “As more and more of our community members get vaccinated, and with the ready availability of the testing kits on campus, we expect those numbers to remain quite low through the summer.”
The University will closely monitor the effectiveness of the summer testing protocols as well as ongoing compliance for the vaccination requirement (August 1 for faculty and staff; September 1 for students) before announcing testing protocols for Fall Semester.
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