Welcome back to weekly testing

BY JORDYN FORTE

With residence halls open and classes in session, the Stonehill College Testing Center is open and has resumed its normal hours of operation for weekly COVID-19 surveillance testing.

Junior Nathan Brown said that he believes Stonehill’s weekly testing has helped prevent the spread of asymptomatic COVID cases on campus.

“The testing definitely makes me feel more comfortable because I know the chances of catching COVID on campus are a lot lower when everyone is getting tested weekly,” Brown said.

Freshman Gideon Daley shared similar sentiments regarding Stonehill’s testing policy.

“I'm a fan of the asymptomatic testing policy, generally speaking,” Daley said. “It's a bit of a pain, but I think it does help to catch cases overall and make sure everybody is safe. I think the best way to avoid catching COVID is to catch people who get it early.”

“I wouldn't really be okay with returning to in-person classes, especially with the Omicron surge, if there wasn't a COVID test protocol,” Daley said.

Like Stonehill’s testing policy last semester, the College’s surveillance testing policy for the Spring 2022 continues to require students and staff to test for COVID once per week, though individuals are able to test twice per week if they would like to.

The Testing Center is open for students and staff on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Wednesdays from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Between the testing and the contact-tracing – the efficiency of our contact-tracing team, being able to identify positives almost as soon as we get those results back, getting people into isolation, and getting close contacts into quarantine – that has really helped us to control the spread on campus,” Registered Nurse and COVID Testing Center Coordinator Monique Avila said.

Despite maintaining a number of COVID policies and protocols that were already in place, the College did recently update the way in which students and staff members are notified about positive COVID tests and close contact exposures.

“In order to continue to follow positive cases most efficiently and support community members who may need to isolate or quarantine, we have implemented a ‘surge protocol’ that will inform our contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine guidance. These new protocols will start Saturday, January 15, 2022,” an email sent from the Office of General Counsel on Friday, January 14, said.

From January 15 onwards, if students or staff test positive, they will receive notifications via email (from CovidTestingCenter@stonehill.edu) and via text message. These messages will provide a link, which leads to an online form that must be completed to demonstrate that the test results have been received. This form will also help to provide the Testing Center with necessary information, such as the names of close contacts.

Those who are identified as close contacts will also receive an email notification (from CovidTestingCenter@stonehill.edu) containing an online form that must be completed.

“It’s important for the community to pay attention to those emails, to pay attention to those text messages, and to act upon them as soon as they receive them,” Avila said.

In addition to the implementation of the automated notification system, Stonehill also required eligible students to receive COVID booster shots before returning to campus, and all students and staff had to provide proof of a negative test within seven days of their arrival unless they had tested positive within the last 90 days, in which case proof of a positive test was required.

“Public health experts have emphasized that vaccination is the leading prevention strategy to protect individuals from COVID-19 disease. Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccines is a critical component of the strategy to reduce the severity of illness, protect high-risk populations, decrease the strain on health care resources, and reduce the risk of emerging variants,” Director of Health Services Maria Sullivan said via email.

“The American College Health Association has recommended that college communities, which consist of people of all ages and health statuses living and working in close contact with one another, require COVID-19 vaccination to create a high level of ‘community immunity,’” Sullivan wrote.

Since the start of classes on January 17, the College has also updated their isolation, close, contact and quarantine protocols, as outlined in their January 10 community update, and masking is still required indoors as well.

“All policy updates are prompted by developments in the pandemic and are made based on CDC guidelines, as well as guidance from our expert medical consultants,” General Counsel Tom Flynn said via email. “Whenever we revise our COVID-19 response protocols, our goal is always to keep our community safe amid our efforts to provide the best possible living and learning environment for our students.”

Data from surveillance testing suggests that, so far, the careful measures that Stonehill has taken to limit the spread of COVID appear to have been effective. According to the COVID Test Results Dashboard, of the 2,299 tests that were taken by Stonehill students and staff between Tuesday, January 18 to Friday, January 24, 77 were positive (3.35 percent).

While these numbers are higher than the numbers that Stonehill has seen in weeks past, Stonehill’s seven-day positivity rate is significantly lower than the 14-day positivity rates of Bristol and Plymouth counties, which were 25.79 percent and 24.06 percent respectively.