Now that Boston University is publishing its COVID-19 testing data on a public-facing dashboard, Gloria Waters, BU vice president and associate provost for research, and Judy Platt, director of BU Student Health Services, will provide a weekly update on the overall health of the BU community. They'll explain how the testing systems are working, where the glitches are, and how well students, faculty, and staff are following protocols. This is their first weekly report.
From September 2 to 8, Boston University's coronavirus surveillance program identified 22 positive test results among students and 6 positives among faculty and staff. Among students, Platt says around 70 percent of those who tested positive have been asymptomatic.
"This is why routine testing is so important," she says. "We know, based on published and unpublished data, that asymptomatic or mild illness is particularly pronounced among young people."
In the three days leading up to Labor Day weekend, Platt says BU saw a slight increase in total positive results. In the four days since then, the trend of daily positive results went back down.
"We attribute that uptick to people still moving to campus, and to [newly arrived] off-campus students completing their first test since getting here," Platt says. "This is why we wanted to do entry testing-so that if people are bringing any cases in from outside the community, we can find those cases early."
Waters is watching testing turnaround times and coronavirus activity among BU researchers working inside on-campus labs. Coming into Labor Day weekend, Waters says the average turnaround time for testing results had crept up to the point where next-day results could no longer be guaranteed.
She implicates a number of factors: In one instance, Waters says results stopped migrating seamlessly from the laboratory information systems software to BU's electronic medical records; in another, laboratory robots struggled to accurately read the identifying barcodes on the new version of sample test tubes. (Starting last week, BU began collecting test samples using a different swab kit.)
"The new swabs are easier to process in the labs, but the barcodes are in a slightly different location than on the previous version of kits that our robots had been processing," Waters says.
Waters also says the BU Clinical Testing Lab has to adjust to large fluctuations in the number of people submitting samples from day to day. "We want testing to be really easy for people, so we haven't mandated they get tested on certain days, at certain times," she says. That's partly why BU processed 3,539 samples on September 3, but nearly double that, 6,902, on September 4.
Last Thursday, Waters and the BU Clinical Testing Lab team decided to have people come in early and stay late every day over Labor Day weekend to process the backlog. The lab has also hired more technicians to help speed up testing turnaround times. The backlog has been eliminated and next-day results are back on track.
Next-day results are critical, so that sick individuals are isolated quickly and their close contacts can be notified.
Coronavirus cases among members of BU's research laboratories is one area Waters is focused on.
"People spend more time inside a laboratory than they might spend inside a classroom," she says. Based on a couple of coronavirus cases identified among BU's research community, she is working with deans of research and lab managers to double down on communicating the importance of keeping labs as least dense as possible.
Overall, Platt says she's cautiously optimistic based on BU's testing data so far. "When you look at other universities our size that have struggled with case counts and clusters, we've been really fortunate so far. And that's a testament to the BU community adhering to guidelines," she says. "Relatively speaking, our numbers look low and we need everyone to keep adhering to guidelines to keep us in this situation."
Platt stresses the importance of the community helping contact tracing efforts by naming close contacts who need to be quarantined. "People need to be truthful about their close contacts, and we've had really great cooperation on this front," she says. "We do not release someone's name when they identify a close contact-we try to preserve anonymity as much as we can."
Gloria Waters spearheaded teams of BU scientists in their development and deployment of a campus-wide COVID-19 testing program and chairs the Community Health Oversight Group, which scrutinizes BU's testing data each day. Judy Platt, a member of BU's Medical Advisory Group, oversees clinical management and isolation of students who test positive for coronavirus, and helps manage BU's contact tracing efforts.
