MADISON, Wis. – Campus officials are beginning to tighten rules regarding COVID testing for students following yet another early semester surge in cases.
Public Health Madison Dane County says during the last two weeks, nearly 40 percent of new cases county-wide are tied to students and faculty.
This week, the university posted back-to-back days with roughly 100 new cases.
Part of this is due to an increased testing effort, campus leaders say. Currently, the university is performing more than 6,000 tests each day.
“The frequent testing gives us the ability to pick up cases earlier than you’d expect than we could in the fall, and it allows us to be proactive,” said Professor Ajay Sethi. “When we see a spike, it’s an opportunity for us to just be a little more vigilant, a little more careful. Just for this period, we’ll make it more habit forming- then we’ll start to see those cases come down.”
Students who live on or near campus are currently required to take two saliva COVID-19 tests each week. Should cases continue to rise, however, this could expand to students in certain residence halls being made to test every other day.
Students could now face punishments for not complying with tests, also, ranging from losing opportunities to study abroad to suspension.
“These new campus health requirements, they aren’t just a good idea –they are campus policy and we expect students and employees to follow them,” said spokesperson Meredith McGlone. “We have said all along to students and families that there could be consequences to students if they consistently don’t follow public health requirements on campus.”
Students say while they understand the testing requirements, it’s been a challenge getting accustomed to the change.
“Personally, I am a full time student and I work about 10 hours a week,” said sophomore Isabella Marquetti. “So it’s kind of difficult to find a time in the scheduled hours the university has for testing.”
“I think we take it pretty seriously,” said sophomore Megan Burtch. “Some of us, we live in a sorority house, so we get a lot of flack for that. Everyone pins it just on us. I do think we take it really seriously.”
Health officials say the biggest concern is what could happen should cases spread beyond campus, once again infecting the general population.
“I would feel much better about it if most of the population that needs to be vaccinated had already been vaccinated,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, Medical Director of Infection Prevention for UW Health. “Even though we’re made strides there, it’s still a pretty small portion of the population that is protected.”
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