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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Today@Brown
Description
An account of the resource
This collection captures the different events announced on Today@Brown, a daily email received by all members of Brown, as screenshots.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Following the conclusion of the summer pilot phase for our routine COVID-19 testing program, the University launched an even more comprehensive fall testing program on Monday, Aug. 24. I write today with an initial update to the community on our results to date, as students and employees approved to be on campus continue to visit our two testing locations with the start of the fall term approaching.
Since Aug. 24, we have enrolled in the testing program 6,375 members of the Brown community who are studying, working or living on campus as part of our phased return to in-person operations. By the end of the day on Tuesday, Sept. 1, we had completed approximately 6,000 tests at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center (OMAC) and One Davol Square testing sites. As of that same timeframe, results for more than 5,400 of those tests had been returned, with the others still to be processed.
Out of those approximately 5,400 tests, we have had a total of five positive results. Among those five, some of these positive results represent not newly detected cases, but prior infections of COVID-19 diagnosed at earlier points within the past 90 days — during that timeframe after diagnosis, a person can shed virus particles that are detected by a previous test, even though the individual is no longer contagious. (And consistent with CDC guidance, individuals who test positive should generally not be tested for the next 90 days.)
While the low rate of positive asymptomatic tests is reassuring, it is by no means an indication that our individual or community vigilance with regard to health and safety measures should relax. It is an indication that the efforts we are all making every day -- wearing masks, washing our hands, maintaining social distancing, staying home when sick or exposed, participating in the testing program -- are working and that we need to continue those efforts to best protect ourselves, the Brown community, and our broader Providence and Rhode Island communities as well.
In general, the feedback we have received regarding the testing sites and process itself has been positive, and we have continued to make improvements based on participant feedback and suggestions. We have also been monitoring the timeliness of results closely. The Broad Institute picks up test samples from both of our testing sites twice a day, and those samples arrive in their Cambridge, Massachusetts, lab facility in the late afternoon or evening on the same day each test is conducted. For the most part, the Broad Institute has delivered results within 24 hours of the sample arriving at the lab -- so typically with 24 to 36 hours following the test. That is consistent with what we anticipated but remains a metric of success that we will assess on a daily basis.
As some participants are aware, we have some challenges with the online scheduling process. A significant system update to the Healthy at Work / School web application was implemented this week, and we believe that challenges to the scheduling process have been resolved. Some of these were related to the change in testing cadence from the summer pilot, when we were sampling the population and selecting participants at random for tests -- as opposed to the fall program, through which all participants are tested either once or twice a week.
Concurrent with the launch of the testing program, we are also in the latter stages of finalizing a public dashboard that will share data on testing results and the prevalence of the virus on campus. We look forward to sharing that dashboard with the full community shortly.
In the interim, you can find additional details and a growing set of FAQs on the Testing & Tracing section of the Healthy Brown website at https://healthy.brown.edu/testing-tracing.
I want to thank all students, faculty and staff who have participated in routine testing to date for their diligence in completing the symptom tracker, scheduling and taking tests, and for their patience as we work through the successful launch of a program with significant scale and complexity. Similarly, I deeply appreciate the efforts of the many colleagues at Brown who are working hard every day to support the program for all participants.
Sincerely,
Russell C. Carey
Executive Vice President, Planning and Policy
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Update on COVID-19 Routine Testing Program
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Russell Carey
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Today@Brown
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
September 3, 2020
fall 2020
fall on campus
positive case
Russell Carey
testing
testing pilot program
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774c0162b65bfaafce71b1bb03ec2041
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Today@Brown
Description
An account of the resource
This collection captures the different events announced on Today@Brown, a daily email received by all members of Brown, as screenshots.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
More than two months ago, we launched the pilot phase of a routine COVID-19 testing program, starting with all graduate students, faculty and staff designated as essential on-site and essential-special for conducting work on campus. Today, we write to share key takeaways from the pilot, which have helped inform our approach for the academic year on everything from the testing process and contact tracing protocols to how we will keep the community informed of confirmed cases and COVID-19 prevalence on campus.
As Brown’s Plan for a Healthy and Safe 2020-21 outlines in detail, COVID-19 testing and contact tracing will be among the most essential elements of Brown’s plans to mitigate the impact of coronavirus. We know that like any campus or community, we can expect to see diagnosed cases at Brown until a vaccine is made widely available — this fact is the very basis for many of the specific measures outlined in our academic year plan.
Over the course of our summer pilot, which began in June, we received results for nearly 3,100 routine tests. Based on those reports — as well as the results of tests conducted independently away from campus and self-reported to the University by students or employees — we are aware of less than five positive test results in total. As is customary when cases number between one and five, we are sharing this range to protect confidentiality. We have taken action in response to the positive case(s) in line with our contact tracing protocols, COVID-19 Campus Safety Policy, isolation and quarantine procedures, and other measures outlined in our 2020-21 plan.
The experiences and feedback of those tested in the summer pilot have informed the development of our routine testing and tracing protocols, which began this week as we prepare for the coming academic year. Together with Verily, our third-party COVID-19 testing vendor, we have worked hard to improve the test scheduling process, speed up turnaround times for test results, strengthen the process for delivering test results to participants, and refine the approach to the web-based screening survey through which participants report symptoms.
Throughout the pilot, we have continuously evaluated tests that are accurate and reliable and labs that can provide fast turnaround of test results. This fall, the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will process our tests. The Broad Institute has processed tests for many New England colleges and universities since late spring and has demonstrated that it is able to return results in a timely manner. The Broad test is a self-administered (under supervision) anterior nasal swab, which is easier and significantly less uncomfortable than the mid-turbinate nasal swab the University used for most of its summer pilot. CDC guidance indicates that the two testing techniques are comparable in accuracy. We will continue to monitor developments in testing technology and assess new options as they become available.
Moving forward, routine testing of all members of the Brown community who plan to work and study on campus, as well as undergraduate students who live on campus or in Providence during the academic year, will be mandatory. By the end of this week, all community members subject to mandatory testing will have received an email prompting them to schedule an initial baseline test in late August, early September or the point at which they come to campus. Those who undergo testing will also be required to respond to regular symptom tracking surveys.
Routine testing for the fall term will happen at two locations, with the majority of asymptomatic tests taking place at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center (OMAC) and a secondary site at One Davol Square. Adhering to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention best practices for patient safety in indoor testing locations, the OMAC site is a very large venue with ample ventilation and space required for social distancing. Additionally, the space allows for collection areas to be physically separated and partitioned for both privacy and distance.
While we do not have plans to publicly report individual positive tests, we are committed to keeping the community informed of confirmed cases and COVID-19 prevalence on campus. We plan to report aggregate data at regular intervals over the course of the academic year via a public dashboard on the Healthy Brown website.
We deeply appreciate the assistance and cooperation of everyone who participated in the summer testing pilot, and we hope that you and your loved ones remain healthy and safe this fall.
Sincerely,
Richard M. Locke
Provost
Barbara Chernow
Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
COVID-19 Testing Pilot Results
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Provost Richard Locke and Executive VP Barbara Chernow
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Today@Brown
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
August 28, 2020
Barbara Chernow
Richard Locke
testing
testing pilot program
university communications
verily