The University of Georgia announced a new stage in its surveillance testing program in an email sent out to faculty, staff and students. In this email, the university referred to the last two weeks as a “pilot” program and shared a plan to shift testing to target individuals who have more face-to-face interactions. While testing will still remain voluntary, the university plans to select and invite specific students, faculty and staff to participate through randomized sampling in order to better determine the prevalence of COVID-19 on campus. For asymptomatic faculty, staff and students who were not asked to participate, tests will still be available every weekday at Legion field.
In addition to this change, the university has also successfully procured 10,000 Medical Saliva Test Kits which will be used at the University Health Center to test identified hotspots.
Since beginning surveillance testing on August 10th, UGA has seen a rise from about 90 tests per day to 300 by August 21st. During the first week of testing, 793 individuals were tested and only 3 tests were positive. It was not reported during the first week how many of the individuals tested were students, but the report does state that more faculty and staff were tested than students during that first week.
During the second week, over half of the individuals tested were students, with that number going up to 73% since the first day of classes on August 20th. The university is currently aiming to have students make up 75-80% of all asymptomatic individuals tested.
The number of tests administered almost doubled during the second week with 1364 people were tested and 32 of those tests being positive. While the sample size was larger, the positivity rate still went up from 0.38% during the first week to 2.35% during the second week.
An updated report of all surveillance testing done so far can be seen on the University Health Center’s website and is updated every Wednesday for the prior week.
