Bringing students back to campus means COVID-19 testing is an essential part of the safe schools’ plan for reopening. School provides more than education, and a return to school is a step back to everyday life. Nexsun Diagnostic Lab can help your college or school reopen and stay open while controlling the spread of COVID-19.
Education
School Testing and Surveillance Programs
COVID-19 surveillance programs are crucial in your school’s COVID-19 management plan. The purposes of testing are:
• Keeping track of infection.
• Screening to prevent outbreaks.
• Responding to outbreaks.
• Identifying illness and tracking contacts.
How Our Program Works
Nexsun offers various testing options you can mix and match to provide a safe learning environment for your school or colleg
• Pre-entry testing for the start of school terms and after breaks – helpful in keeping track.
• Weekly or bi-monthly screening for potential outbreaks.
• Individual diagnostic testing for quarantine monitoring and exposure.
Testing options include:
• Pool testing – the samples combine for one quick test; if the test is negative, everyone in the pool is clear from infection.
• Individual testing – to diagnose symptomatic or asymptomatic individuals.
Nexsun supplies you with the kits to collect the samples, the necessary paperwork for processing the samples, and information to give students and staff about your testing program and approach.
Why Should Your School or College Opt for Nexsun as a Testing Partner?
Nexsun Diagnostic Labs specializes in testing for COVID-19, giving you, your staff, and your students:
• Fast turnaround with results in 24 hours or less (once the sample reaches the lab).
• Affordable Access to regular testing.
• Accurate results with CLIA & COLA certified processes.
Nexsun makes the testing process effortless. We can partner with you for pre-term testing for return, routine surveillance, and extra precautions for hosting large events like school shows and sporting events.
Benefits of an Ongoing School Testing Program
The primary benefit of weekly testing is that it maximizes time in school for the most effective in-person learning experience. Staff and students only isolate and quarantine when necessary.
Screening prevents more serious outbreaks by keeping everyone alert and engaged with preventive measures, including kids’ masks for school, space, ventilation, and hand hygiene. Surveillance testing reassures everyone that the school environment is routinely safe.
Types of Surveillance Programs for Schools
Regular COVID-19 testing limits transmission because you stop infected individuals from passing the virus onto other students and staff. Identifying the percentage of the school population testing positive enables prevention measures like deep cleaning, modified quarantine, and different strategies to minimize the risk of an outbreak.
Daily Entrance Screening
During these screening processes, if anyone is identified as having a possible infection they should be sent home immediately to isolate and wait for diagnostic test results to confirm infection status.
Pool Testing
If the test comes back positive, the individual samples that were used in the pool test are then run again separately to identify the individual(s) with COVID.
Contact Tracing
Contact tracing can be done either using technology or by word-of-mouth recollection of where that person has been. The idea of this system is to figure out where staff and students may have been in contact with a possible COVID-19 case. Looking at class schedules is also a great way of contact tracing and alerting those in the same class that they need to get tested.
Contact tracing for a school’s campus may be difficult, depends on the student body population. However, it is still a viable option in order to detect possible coronavirus exposure in staff and students and to stop further transmission.
Testing Guidance for Schools and Colleges
The CDC school guidelines for safe opening and running of schools include layered prevention strategies to reduce transmission and prevent outbreaks resulting in closure. A fundamental part of these strategies is regular COVID-19 tests to:
• Identify individuals with COVID-19.
• Assess population risk.
Regular COVID-19 testing limits transmission because you stop infected individuals from passing the virus onto other students and staff. Identifying the percentage of the school population testing positive enables prevention measures like deep cleaning, modified quarantine, and different strategies to minimize the risk of an outbreak.
What is the Best Testing Method for Your School or College?
Every school or university has different risks that they face while managing COVID regulations and keeping their student body and staff safe. The best testing method for you may be setting up screening and surveillance programs by themselves to catch any asymptomatic carriers of the virus. However, it could also be a mixture of contact tracing, pool testing and daily entrance screening. It all depends on your risk assessment and the challenges that your individual school faces.
Whatever you need, Nexsun can help you come up with the testing plan that works best for you!
Frequently Asked Questions About COVID-19 Testing and Surveillance: Students and Parents
Check with the school about their pre-entry testing regime. The school may hold a mass testing event to test all pupils in advance of their return to classes. Alternatively, the school may request you take an individual test and provide evidence you are clear of COVID-19 as you return to school.
If you or a family member has symptoms, then an individual test will establish if you are negative or positive for COVID-19. If you have COVID-19, you need to isolate and quarantine in line with medical advice before returning to the school campus.
Stock up on masks and hand sanitizer along with your other return to school supplies.
Schools are responsible for their COVID-19 control and prevention plan using a COVID-19 school testing plan. Some schools will opt for regular testing throughout the academic year to spot potential outbreaks.
Testing is in pools, on a sample basis (around 10% of the unvaccinated population) follows CDC guidance. Reopening schools safely involves regular COVID-19 testing. There will be individual follow-up testing if the pool tests positive and diagnostic testing if you or a close contact test is positive at any point in the academic year.
The best defense is a vaccination to minimize the possibility of catching a severe form of the disease. Not everyone can have the vaccine, so personal responsibility includes:
• Limiting the number of social contacts – if allocated to a pod, stink with those people.
• Wear face masks when appropriate – particularly in crowded public spaces.
•Change face mask regularly to avoid contamination.
• Maintain space between you and other people -six feet is ideal.
• Clean your desk, keyboard, and other equipment before use.
• Regular hand-cleaning – bathroom breaks, meals, entering a new space.
• Take the test when necessary and be aware of symptoms.
• Comply with your school’s COVID-19 management plan.
Your face mask needs to be clean to protect you and those around you – change your face mask regularly. Regular hand-washing protects you from picking up the COVID-19 virus from surfaces like door handles or desks. If using a bottled hand sanitizer, choose one with high alcohol content.
COVID-19 infects you through water droplets inhaled directly or from contact with surfaces contaminated with water droplets from an infected person.
Your school guide (based on CDC school guidelines) will outline the action necessary if you experience symptoms of COVID-19. Generally, expect to take a test and isolate yourself until you get a negative test result. A positive test result will result in close contacts needing a confirmation test to establish their circumstance and a ten-day quarantine.
Nexsun Labs provide rapid diagnostic testing, and your school may have testing kits ready for you to use on campus.
Your school will set the testing timetable to track and prevent a COVID-19 outbreak from disrupting a safe return to in-person schooling. It makes sense to test after a break from campus because this action reassures everyone that they are clear of infection before starting the academic term.
As part of the school enrollment process, you need to notify the school of relevant insurance information – private health insurance, Medi-Cal, or state funding.
As a student, you don’t pay for your COVID-19 testing; your school will handle the reimbursement for the tests to the testing lab.
If you test positive for COVID-19, you must isolate until you meet the following conditions:
• 5 days from the beginning of symptoms or a positive test; and
• No fever for 24 hours without medication; and
• Your symptoms have significantly diminished.
