Authorities switch to self-managed COVID-19 test – GW Hatchet

GW is currently offering a self-managed COVID-19 test test for asymptomatic students.

Officials release Earlier this month, the new test method uses “pooling” to test multiple samples at once and aims to provide more support to students as the university is trying to resume as much as possible in the fall. .. COVID-19 test and higher education students and experts have stated that self-tests may be slightly less accurate than health care provider tests, but this option is often tested by more students. May help you to receive.

“As we gained a better understanding of best practices for COVID-19, we have slowly but surely added to the on-campus cohort. This semester add to With about 1,000 home students, we’ve added face-to-face classes and increased on-campus research, “said Scott Bernotts, vice president of safety and facilities, in a release earlier this month. I will. “That’s why we’re introducing tools to support continuous growth.”

According to the release, asymptomatic students are being tested at the Test Center and Marvin Center on the Virginia Science and Technology Campus, and symptoms are being tested at Schenckman Hall.

Charlie Wilde, a freshman at Potomac House, said the entire self-testing process took less than “3-4 minutes”, the same time as the staff perform the tests.

He said students must make an appointment to take the test through the Colonial Health Center portal. It provides them with a barcode that will be scanned when they arrive at the test center. Then they are asked to provide their birthday written on each test tube along with their name, he said.

“Basically, uncap the tube, pull out the swab, split it in half, and rotate it eight times in a circle at each nostril,” he said. “And put it back in a cotton swab, tube, basically in a small biohazard bag, then in a box and leave it alone.”

Omer Resid, a freshman living in the District House, said he was accustomed to managing tests because he wasn’t confident that he would do it correctly.

“They show you a little bit what to do, but there is no director,” he said. “As a student, I don’t really care, so I wipe it a little and spend the day.”

Self-administered tests use nasal swabs or saliva to collect samples, which are processed in the lab in the same way as medical-delivered tests provided by public health professionals. Said It provides efficient results.

Instead of conducting tests in the same area, he can free up reservation slots by increasing the number of test centers available to students and feel more protected from COVID-19 when students take the test. I added that I can do it.

“If we had more test centers instead of one big hall, we could make more reservations because the stuffing would be significantly reduced, reservations would fill up quickly, and the hall would normally be full of people. “I will,” said Reshid.

Georgia Tarpin, a freshman living in the District House, said the self-testing process is more efficient than the tests performed by clinicians used in the fall semester.

“The fall semester testing process went on longer, as students had to wait for COVID staff to change gloves, process the collection, and clean the test space,” she said. “Currently, staff need to monitor students during the collection process and then clean the area, which is more effective in terms of time.”

According to COVID-19 test experts, self-managed tests that are processed using the pool system are usually efficient for testing large populations because of the rapid results.

Guy Nicolette, Vice President of University Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, uses a self-managed test that his institution analyzes using a pool system that collects groups of test samples for comparison at once. I said there is. He said the sample did not need to be retested unless the pool detected the presence of the virus.

“Pooled samples can dramatically increase lab capacity and, in most cases, reduce turnaround times,” Nicolet said in an email. “In a setting with a low probability of pretesting, most of the pooled samples will be negative, so most samples do not need to be retested. The higher the local rate, the more samples will be isolated and retested. is needed.”

Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, said false-negative results could be either the polymerase chain reaction test, the laboratory technique that GW uses to detect the genetic material of the virus, or the antigen test to search for. He said it depends on whether it is used. A viral protein that exists in the body.

He mistakenly believes that PCR tests tend to produce more false positives because they detect minimal debris, but antigen tests tend to produce false negatives and the patient is not contagious. Said showing.

“It’s about the frequency and ease of testing, the level of capture you get, and what you do with that test result,” he said. “If you can associate test results with quarantine, quarantine, and contact tracking actions, that’s the key.”

This article was published in February 18, 2021 issue Of the hatchet.