PROVIDENCE – As local colleges start welcoming students back to campus this month after closing in-person learning in the middle of the spring semester due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, testing students and faculty will be key to allow on-campus life to move forward.
Two local colleges, thus far, are currently showing the public where their campuses stand in regards to testing – and who has the virus.
Both Providence College and Roger Williams University have created their own COVID-19 data hubs, very similar to the data hub produced by the R.I. Department of Health. The hubs show how many tests have been done both daily and chronologically on the campuses, who has been tested, how many have tested positive and the positive test rates.
PC and RWU are the only two local colleges that currently have live online data hubs showing COVID-19 testing data.
PC’s data hub went live Aug. 4, while RWU’s data hub launched Aug. 6.
PC spokesperson Steven Maurano told Providence Business News Thursday other fellow Big East and Catholic institutions across the country – including the University of Notre Dame – had similar data hubs to show their campus testing numbers and the college thought it would be a good idea to set one up for its own campus.
“We wanted to be transparent on what we are doing on campus and make sure that students and families and alums who are interested could see what we were doing to try and test our population and make sure everybody stayed safe,” Maurano said.
RWU interim Chief of Staff Brian Williams told PBN Friday said the university wanted to keep students and staff engaged as to what RWU is doing to keep the 6,000-plus people on campus safe, hence the need to create the data hub.
“Sharing the data in the way that we do ensures the campus see what’s happening, has confidence in what’s happening,” Williams said, “and can also see and understand any decisions we make about the health and well-being of the campus are happening in real time.”
PC and RWU have contracts with the Cambridge, Mass.-based Broad Institute to analyze the testing and the turnaround time on results are quick. While the state is pushing for results to be turned around within 48 to 72 hours after testing, PC and RWU get their results between 24 and 32 hours, depending on test volume.
Each hub is updated almost daily by college personnel, depending on when results arrive on campus, and the hubs have their own breakdowns of who was tested. According to PC’s hub, 4,140 total tests have been conducted since Aug, 4 through Thursday – 3,206 students and 934 faculty and staff. Almost half of those tests were done between Aug. 24 and Thursday, the vast majority of them on students. PC’s website states it plans to test approximately 150 students per day during the fall semester.
RWU’s hub breaks down, from Aug. 6 through Thursday, how many participants have been tested (4,961 as of Thursday), tests administered (9,334) and tests that have not processed yet (267). The university’s hub also shows peak testing times through the course of the week. Williams said RWU starting next week will test each member of the campus community twice a week through Oct. 2 and will reassess then how it will test through the end of the semester.
The campuses, however, were not virus-free. Six people on each campus have tested positive for COVID-19 since Aug. 17 when the first case was identified. RWU, per the data hub, has had one identified case of COVID-19 each day from Aug. 24-26 but the university has not had multiple daily cases at this point.
Williams said the staff members tested positive before the student move-in at RWU and are now working remotely. One commuting student tested positive and another student is a resident on campus, William said. But, the cases were identified early to avoid community spread on campus due to the university’s contact tracing and testing frequency, Williams said.
Most of PC’s confirmed cases occurred between Aug. 17-18, where there were four total between those two days. But PC has had just two confirmed cases between Aug. 19 and Thursday out of 2,988 conducted tests.
Maurano said “some” of the five students who tested positive and a single faculty member who tested positive are isolating at home, while the other students are isolating on campus. PC has the capacity to quarantine or isolate approximately 100 cases on campus if necessary, Maurano said. He also said PC made arrangements to rent rooms off-campus for isolation or quarantining purposes if the situation calls for it.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Maurano said.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.