![]() Denny said that, based on information from contact tracing, Duke had “no in-class transmission the whole semester” and that costs have been decreased by 80 percent as a result of pooled testing. 34.5 percent of total cases were identified through pooled testing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report says that Duke University identified 84 positive cases, with varying methods, including pooled testing, entry testing, contact tracing, and symptom monitoring. He said that when you test an asymptomatic community, typically “the number of positives you have are low frequency.” According to Thomas Denny, a professor of medicine and the chief operating officer of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, the decision to do pooled testing at Duke University was made because the institution is mainly testing an asymptomatic community. “From what I’ve heard, it’s uncomfortable, but I think it will be worth it to know.”īill Wallace, a science teacher, said that the idea of pooled testing assumes that the vast majority of people you are testing don’t have the virus.ĭuke University implemented pooled COVID-19 testing at a large scale, which assisted them in remaining open for the first semester. “It’s good that they changed it to every week,” freshman Maya Cruz-Hubbard, who hasn’t yet been tested at GDS, said of testing in an interview with the Bit. Now, all students and faculty are tested weekly. Before switching testing partners, students were scheduled to be tested once every other week. ![]() ![]() If the pool comes back positive, CIAN will do “re-flex” testing in which they will individually re-test each sample in the pool, without having people re-swab their noses. Ahuja said in an interview, “Given the rising case numbers in the region, we wanted to be able to do more frequent testing.”Īn email to the GDS community about the school’s new testing protocols explained that in pooled testing, multiple individuals’ nasal swabs are combined and run on the same test. James McArdle, the company’s chief scientific officer. CIAN Diagnostics, a laboratory based in Frederick, Maryland, has the capacity to run 3,000 tests per day, according to Dr. Senior Celia Johnson, who has been tested under both testing programs, said the new program was “a very quick and easy experience,” although some students experienced long lines with CIAN early on.Ĭhildren’s was only able to conduct 300 total COVID-19 tests per day. 15 and was made because Children’s “could not accommodate the need we had in terms of numbers,” according to Vinita Ahuja, GDS’ director of strategic programs, who has managed the school’s virus response. The decision to switch from Children’s National Hospital to CIAN for COVID-19 testing was announced in an email to the GDS community on Nov. The school expressed that the aim of the new partnership is to allow more frequent and cost-effective testing while decreasing interruption to the school day. area, GDS has partnered with CIAN Diagnostics to provide pooled COVID-19 testing for community members. Photo by Ethan Wolin.Īs COVID-19 cases surge in the D.C. Students getting tested in the high school gym with the new CIAN system on Dec.
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