University of Kansas will test all students and faculty for COVID-19. Here’s how
Every student, faculty and staff member on University of Kansas campuses will be tested for COVID-19 as classes begin for the fall semester.
“This will be a saliva test and not a ‘put a stick up the nose’ test,” KU Chancellor Douglas Girod said Wednesday. He called it “a very good test that will allow us to test on a broad scale.”
Girod discussed the university testing program with KU Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer during a weekly online chat. The testing program, he said, was put together with the help of Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Watkins Health Services and the University of Kansas Health System.
“It’s the safest way to get our campus opened,” Girod said. He said the university will “continue testing throughout the semester” and will develop a plan for contact tracing when cases are found. The university’s health partners will “help provide some manpower” to do that testing.
Bichelmeyer said that as part of the university’s rules for reopening, everyone also will be required to wear masks on campus. And the university is now working on how it will enforce that rule. She said the idea is “to create a mask-wearing culture at KU.”
But she said all the plans are subject to change. “This is a very fluid time,” Bichelmeyer said. “We are still quite a ways away from knowing what COVID is going to look like in Lawrence this fall.”
This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 3:39 PM.
