The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Experts: College COVID cases send ‘message’
The first COVID-19 cases detected in Connecticut college students arriving back on campus is a positive sign the health screening is working and should serve as a warning about the high risk for outbreaks, medical professionals say.
At least seven University of Connecticut students and two University of New Haven students tested positive for the coronavirus as of Monday, school officials said.
The detection of the positive cases is a sign protocols at colleges and universities in the state are working, said Dr. Zane
Saul, director of infection prevention at Bridgeport Hospital.
“If they’re identifying people before they have contact with other people and making them quarantine, that’s a good thing,” he said. “That means screening works.”
Saul said the positive tests, “should be a message to other schools out there that you need lots of active screening. If they don’t screen asymptomatic people, they’re going to enter the premises and start an outbreak.”
Officials with the state Department of Public Health and Gov. Ned Lamont’s office did not respond Monday to requests for comment or informa
tion on how they are tracking the college cases.
On Monday, the state reported more than 44,000 new coronavirus tests since Friday with 370 new cases of the virus — a positivity rate of 0.8 percent. Hospitalization in the state has also dropped by 14 patients, according to the state’s latest statistics.
The spike in tests comes as most college students are required to find out if they have the virus before arriving on campus.
Keith Grant, the senior system director of infection prevention at Hartford Healthcare, is working with several colleges and universities — including Trinity College and the University of Hartford — to develop reopening plans.
He said most schools are testing at least once a week, and some are testing twice a week.
Grant said testing students as they re-enter provides “really good data,” and could help avoid spikes.
“One of the things we wanted was to have the ability to monitor and react (by quarantining),” Grant said.
The cases among college students in Connecticut came as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced Monday it’s switching to online-only classes. The decision was announced a day after a fourth cluster of coronavirus infections was identified at the school, which serves around 30,000 students.
The initial cases at UConn and the University of New Haven are likely just the start of positive test results in Connecticut, Grant said.
“My expectation is, if you test the population, you’re going to have positives,” he said. “Connecticut has done very well, but you’re going to have positives.”
Summer Johnson McGee, dean of the University of New Haven’s School of Health Sciences, said tests are required of all students and employees before returning to campus. Johnson McGee said that out of 1,600 tests, two students have tested positive prior to move-in. One employee also tested positive, she said.
“We are testing at one-tenth of 1 percent positivity, which is about as low as you can get,” Johnson McGee said. “Students were not yet living on campus, so they will isolate offcampus
until their symptoms end — at least 10 days. A repeat test and medical clearance is required before returning to campus for anyone who has tested positive.”
Like the University of New Haven, most colleges and universities are requiring all students to be tested for COVID-19 before arriving on campus. Students will then be randomly tested throughout the fall.
That’s true of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, where Dean of Students Lawrence Wielk said no students, staff or faculty — all of whom are required to be tested before returning to campus — have reported positive results. But movein for most students is still more than a week away, Wielk said.
Once students return, 5 to 10 percent of the population will be tested randomly each week. Any on-campus student with a positive result will be sent home to quarantine. If quarantining at home is not possible, students will be sent to the school’s “guest house,” the former General Electric headquarters, where students coming from states on Lamont’s mandatory quarantine list, are already isolating.
The Connecticut State Colleges & Universities — which includes Central, Eastern, Southern and Western Connecticut state universities — all require students living on campus to be tested when they return to school.
At WestConn, students living together are considered a “family unit,” according to the university’s reopening plan, so they will not have to wear masks or maintain social distance while in their rooms.
“One thing we are going to be a little bit more strict about than some universities is mask wearing,” said Paul Steinmetz, a spokesman for the university. “We will give one warning, and after that, students not wearing a mask will be referred to our judicial process.”
The school plans to move classes online-only after Thanksgiving, so students can visit family and not have to be retested to return to school.
Steinmetz said the university does not have any positive cases, but most students will arrive on Aug. 23 for move-in day. He said a few students from out of state are quarantining on campus.
Quinnipiac University is also requiring all students living on campus to be tested when they arrive. Families will be required to pay the $130.22 charge for the back-to-school test. The school said students take a saliva sample using a home test kit that is sent to Rutgers’ Infinite Biologics.
Naugatuck Valley Community College, which operates campuses in Waterbury and Danbury, said testing is not required because it is not a residential school. The college plans to have custodial staff disinfect bathrooms daily as well as high-touch areas such as ATMs, elevator buttons and door handles.
Contact tracing could also play an important role in stemming the spread of on-campus cases.
Johnson McGee said the University of New Haven trained a team of contact tracers who, in the event of a positive case, will reach out to all potential contacts and require a 14-day quarantine and testing.
And at Sacred Heart, the dean of students said it’s just a matter of time before the school experiences positive cases once the students return.
“We have another full week before we bear the full brunt of what this will look like,” Wielk said. “But the focus is really kind of centering around the safety and wellness of the community.”