Colleges and universities across the country are struggling with decisions about whether to re-open their campuses for summer programs and the fall semester. On May 11, UC San Diego launched a program intended to assess the design, implementation, and feasibility of a testing program called UC San Diego Return to Learn.
The program, which includes plans for contract tracing and isolation housing for on-campus resident students who test positive for the virus, is intended to better position UC San Diego to resume in-person activities when fall classes begin in September.
The initial phase seeks the participation of the more than 5,000 students currently on campus; the subsequent effort might involve up to an estimated 65,000 students, faculty, and staff.
UCSD said the Return to Learn program will combine information technologies and molecular epidemiology tools with traditional and new public health interventions to produce new levels of viral control at the population level.
In a video on the UCSD website, Natasha Martin, D.Phil., an associate professor in the division of infectious disease and global public health, said the goal is to expand the program this fall to test the entire UCSD community every month. She said her team would develop simulation models to help understand how to best identify outbreaks and prevent their transmission.
“With a team of UC San Diego clinicians, public health experts, molecular biologists, infectious disease specialists, epidemiologists and statisticians, we will work together a comprehensive program in order to best detect outbreaks and prevent their transmission to the UC San Diego community,” Martin said. “This summer we will measure our success by our ability to provide simple and easily accessible testing to resident students. Looking forward into the future, our ultimate goal is to allow the resumption of campus activities so we can do what we do best — teaching, research and serving the community.”
In the initial phase, COVID-19 testing will be made available to resident undergraduate and graduate students on campus in May. Participation is voluntary, but all eligible students are encouraged to participate. There will be no cost to the students who choose to participate. Participating students will be directed to one of several designated sites on campus to pick up a clean nasal swab in a specimen collection container, linking a personalized number to the specimen and generating a time stamp. The participant will then swab the inside of their own nose, return the swab to the container, place it in a provided plastic bag and leave it in a collection box to be picked up by program coordinators who will test for the virus by nucleic acid detection at the Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine at UC San Diego Health.
As nasal swab samples arrive in the laboratory, they will be tested for SARS-CoV-2. If an individual sample comes back positive for the virus, Student Health Services will notify the student to provide clinical guidance.
Students who live on campus will be relocated to dedicated isolation housing. The isolation units have private bedrooms and bathrooms and are supported with direct meal. Students will have daily phone checks from Student Health. Additionally, the names of students testing positive will be referred to county public health officials for their information and to a trained UCSD team who will reach out to those students to identify other individuals they may have been in close contact with, the goal being to offer appropriate contact tracing and guidance for those individuals. The purpose of contact tracing is to promote public health efforts. The names of positive students will not be disclosed to the individuals with whom they may have had close contacts.
UCSD said that in the aggregate, they may provide a good idea of how effective this approach might be if deployed in the fall to proactively monitor UC San Diego for evidence of viral transmission. The program is intended to help determine locations and populations in which the virus might be spreading so that university leaders, scientists and physicians can more effectively respond to the virus’ spread.
The process will leverage UCSD Health’s electronic medical record system to support all notifications and test ordering. UC San Diego was the first in the University of California system to have its student health, counseling and psychological services share electronic medical records with the affiliate health system.
The program is designed to be dynamic and adaptive, focusing on minimizing transmission and spread of SARS-CoV-2. The university said it would be working closely with UC San Diego Health and San Diego County public health officials throughout the effort.
