Colleagues,

 

You may find this short video of interest, showing how we test at Yale, and the testing booths we built for COVID testing:

 

https://news.yale.edu/2020/10/02/see-what-covid-19-testing-yale-residential-college

 

These are negative pressure home-made booths that are exhausted to HEPA filters. This arrangement obviates the need to allocate scarce N95s for testing staff (reassigned dining workers who are doing a great job) and finding testing space that has satisfactory ventilation. By doing all our tests inside these booths, we can set up a testing station in any indoor space.

 

These are PCR tests of the anterior nares, done by a vendor. We usually get a 12-24 hour turnaround.

 

Yale has 18 testing locations on campus for students and 2 testing locations for faculty and staff. Our testing plan is:

• Twice weekly testing for all undergraduates and graduate and professional students living in high density graduate dorms
• Once weekly testing for faculty and staff with significant contact with studentsÑthose with daily, non-incidental contact with undergraduate students
• Arrival or gateway testing for faculty, with weekly testing available
• Arrival or gateway testing for graduate and professional students, with weekly testing encouraged but not required

 

Our goal is to detect an asymptomatic person and respond immediately. For more information, see: https://covid19.yale.edu/screening

 

Since August 1^st, we have administered 79,853 tests. Of those, we have detected 43 COVID positive students and 13 COVID positive faculty and staff. For more data, see: https://covid19.yale.edu/yale-statistics

 

EHS involvement in Yale testing includes booth design, SOPs, PPE, infection control, training, and waste disposal.