In a computer model, researchers found that coronavirus outbreaks could be controlled when universities frequently tested the whole student body. Some universities are using this to help guide their planning for the fall semester. commonhealth
Tufts erected temporary isolation spaces on the tennis courts at Fletcher Field, across the street from the President's house. Jesse Costa/WBUR)
“We decided to test the students both on campus and off campus twice a week,” he says. “But faculty, staff and others only once a week.” In the model, outbreaks could be controlled when the university frequently tested the whole student body . Universities have limited budgets, though, and the most accurate tests can be expensive, Walensky says. But the model showed a cheaper, lower-accuracy test, if administered more often, actually performed better.
How often universities will need to test students also depends on the students themselves, Walensky says. If they do well at following COVID-19 precautions, they might be able to keep down the number of new cases that each infected student causes — a number epidemiologists call the reproductive number.
Even if that number rises to three or four, Walensky’s study suggests that colleges can still manage the coronavirus by testing students every two or three days. Walensky and her colleagues published their work onJagpreet Chhatwal, a data scientist at Harvard University who did not work on the study, says the research provides valuable evidence to help guide universities in their planning for the fall semester.
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