Where is Penn State’s COVID-19 testing plan? Silence, lack of answers irk community
Penn State has yet to publicly release a COVID-19 testing plan despite some students already spending time on campus and thousands more set to arrive in the coming weeks — a fact that is causing a growing sense of unease among students, community members and faculty.
Although the university has organized three task force groups and 12 action groups to better prepare for reopening, and it remains confident it will meet or exceed state and federal guidelines, some of Penn State’s biggest questions on dealing with the coronavirus remain unanswered — less than a month before students are set to return.
How will testing work? (Will students and faculty be charged for tests? What is the turnaround time for tests? How many tests can the university conduct daily?) How will off-campus students be isolated if, say, one person in a three-roommate apartment contracts the virus? Penn State has said it will be transparent on its positive tests — so when, how and where will that dashboard be available?
“The anxiety is kind of growing because there’s something like three weeks until students arrive,” said Sarah Townsend, an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, “and we don’t have answers.”
Townsend was one of more than 1,100 faculty members to sign an open letter to university administrators more than a month ago over concern about reopening. The first bulleted point of that letter? A need for rigorous testing.
The Centre Daily Times reached out to four university spokespeople on Tuesday and again Wednesday with questions about coronavirus testing, and the CDT did not receive any specifics. After publication Thursday evening, a spokesperson clarified that a town hall would be announced in the near future that should provide more details.
But, for now, students still have questions.
“Penn State is doing a lot and it’s an enormous undertaking to do what they’re doing in the fall,” said Bailey Campbell, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering who helped organize a “die-in” Monday to protest reopening. “But it is also incredibly frustrating that they’re not being completely transparent about what they’re doing.
“Does that mean these plans aren’t created, or are they just finalizing them? Either speaks to their unpreparedness for the fall.”
Yes, Penn State has done much to combat the pandemic — from purchasing 500,000 masks to putting sanitizer stations at the entrance to every building and classroom. It’s also released specifics on wearing masks inside classrooms and finalized half of classes being held online-only. But, critics say, testing and contact tracing are among the most critical ingredients to successfully battling the pandemic, and silence on those issues has only led to concern and confusion.
“To say there’s concern is to put it mildly,” State College councilman Evan Myers said. “I look at the fact that I know of people in this area that have now gone 12 days after getting their COVID test without a result yet. How will the university turn around testing for 40,000 students plus — I don’t know — another 15,000-plus professors, instructors and folks that work on campus in a meaningful time period?”
Penn State has released information piecemeal for much of the summer, but many pressing questions remain. Will Penn State test arriving students for COVID-19 like Cornell announced it would more than a week ago? With class starting Aug. 24, how will Penn State students from 18 states, such as California and Florida, follow state guidelines and quarantine for 14 days upon arriving in Pennsylvania, especially when on-campus move-in dates are not yet finalized?
That sentiment of unease was shared by State College’s Borough Council on Monday. Council members took turns publicly criticizing the university’s lack of transparency, wondering aloud when more answers would come.
“The university told us that they would be prepared to pivot if things look bad,” councilman Peter Marshall said. “I really would like to know when it’s going to be bad enough to pivot, and what that means. Does that mean closed down? What does it mean?”
Added councilwoman Theresa Lafer: “Do they have any response plan? ... What do we do if there’s a really big jump over eight to 10 days?”
Many other large universities have not yet revealed testing plans either. But Penn State President Eric Barron said in a news release Thursday night, after the initial publication of this story, that it will be announcing another town hall meeting where “we will share more information about specific plans and action items to be ready for a return to campus.”
Local officials have said they don’t have much more information than the general public right now. Penn State held two closed webinars, which the council also universally panned, and it also formed a town and gown task force — although their work is also not known. Myers said he wasn’t even able to find the members of the committee online.
“The best we can do is to be transparent,” Myers added. “If you don’t know the answer, say so. We sure as heck don’t have the answer to everything. In fact, we don’t have the answer to most things. It’s OK to say we don’t have the answer to that.”
For now, little is known about the progress of Penn State’s testing plan. Other schools have been forced to walk back their fall plans due to testing limitations. But, again, it’s not known if such a drastic change could occur at Penn State.
The university hasn’t said.
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 6:39 PM.
