As St. Thomas students return to campus for spring semester, the Center for Well-Being offered its fourth free COVID-19 testing event on Thursday to track and limit the spread of COVID-19.
The university is following the Minnesota Department of Health’s recommendation to test students for COVID-19 after their return to campus. The Center for Well-Being urges students to get tested, even if no symptoms are present, and to continue following safety protocols like social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands.
“If people can hold on and keep doing these mitigation practices, it’s saving lives and it’s keeping people healthy,” Luis de Zengotita, Director of Operations for the Center for Well-Being said.
de Zengotita urges students to participate in these events because COVID-19 may be asymptomatic, leading students to spread the illness without knowing.
“It’s really important to get tested even if you have no symptoms because asymptomatic carriers are a large driver of the continued infections, and by getting a test, you can help keep everyone safe by making sure you aren’t one of them,” de Zengotita said.
The testing event used a polymerase chain reaction test (PCR) which is the most accurate of tests, de Zengotita said. The PCR COVID-19 test uses saliva to identify the virus’s genetic material.
“Vault Health is the company that runs it, and it’s one of the most accurate tests on the market, so it’s got less than a 0.5% false negative, which is almost as high as you can get,” de Zengotita said.
Students used this testing opportunity to help limit the spread of COVID-19, like first-year Kaylee Olson.
“It’s important to get tested to slow the spread of COVID, and just to be knowledgeable and know what to do next to keep everybody safe and healthy,” Olson said.
First-year student Melissa Harris said the process was easy.
“More students should participate in this event because it took me like five minutes. It was easy and it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Harris said.
This was the fourth COVID-19 testing event offered by the Center for Well-Being. The university collects the information from these tests to gauge how much of the St. Thomas community has COVID-19.
“The positivity rate for everyone tested was anywhere from 2% to 3%, which was much lower than the community,” de Zengotita said.
This low positivity rate shows that the mitigation efforts put forth by the university, like wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands are working, de Zengotita added.
“We need to continue that momentum into the spring semester, particularly when the number of cases is higher than it’s ever been worldwide and with new variants coming out” de Zengotita explained.
“If students want testing after this event, we also offer testing at the Center for Well-Being,” de Zengotita said.
These tests can be done quickly and are set up with a HIPAA filter for people to receive their test quickly and safely.
“We are really encouraging people to use this resource as this is a really crucial point in time,” de Zengotita said.
Natalie Hoepner can be reached at hoep8497@stthomas.edu.