Thursday, August 6, students received an email from David R. Hill, M.D., the senior medical advisor for Quinnipiac University, regarding the COVID-19 testing procedures before and after arriving on campus this fall.

Students must meet the health guidelines and pass the COVID-19 testing program Quinnipiac has designed for the university to reopen safely and for students to move back to campus.

“This program requires students to be tested before returning to Quinnipiac and again shortly after their arrival on campus. Students also will be regularly tested throughout the fall semester,” the email stated.

Pre- Arrival Testing- Before Returning to Campus

All students, undergraduate and graduate, who are planning on participating in, in-person instruction or on-campus activities must be tested for COVID-19 prior to their return.

Quinnipiac has partnered with Rutgers University’s Infinite Biologics to provide a non-invasive saliva-based test to make sure families do not hold the burden of finding a reasonable time and to travel to take the test. Rutgers is partnering with Vault Health to test kits and send them to the student’s current location within 24 to 48 hours of requesting a kit.

The pre-arrival COVID-19 tests will cost $130.22 and will be billed to the students’ Bursar accounts. Quinnipiac recommends students to talk to their health care providers to see if it is possible to be reimbursed for the charge.

Addressed in the email are steps for the home COVID-19 tests:

Receiving Your Home Test Kit – Each student will receive an email from Quinnipiac. This email will have instructions about testing and give you a link (a test code) to begin the process. You will click on the test code link and be taken to Vault’s website, where you will provide information about yourself, including the address where the test kit should be sent. Once you initiate this process, the kit will arrive at the address you provided within the next one to two days.
Completing Your Test – The test kit package will include a set of instructions for how to collect a saliva specimen at home. You will schedule a Zoom video call with a test supervisor, collect the saliva sample, and then send the kit to Rutgers’ Infinite Biologics in the prepaid UPS envelope provided.
Receiving Your Test Results – Test results should be available within 24 to a maximum of 72 hours of receipt of your saliva sample by Rutgers’ Infinite Biologics. You will be notified by email. Quinnipiac Student Health Services also will be notified of your result to streamline your “cleared-to-return” process.

If the test comes back negative, the student will be able to return to campus. Students who receive a positive test result must remain at home. Quinnipiac Health Services will keep in contact with the positive-tested students to provide a care plan and information on how the student can return to campus.
Students who choose to use an alternative testing option must make sure their test is completed and comes back negative within 6 days of arrival to campus. Their test results must be reported in the patient portal for review and approval.

Return Testing- Upon Return to Campus

After the return to campus for the academic school year, students will receive a non-invasive nasal swab test. The cost of the test will be covered by Quinnipiac. All on-campus testing will be performed by the Broad Institute, a genomic research center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Students are asked to limit their time outside of their housing units until they get confirmation that their test came back negative.

Emails should be monitored frequently upon the return to campus for information on the dates, times and the location for the scheduled COVID-19 testing. Students who do not complete another test will not be cleared to move more around the campus.

Ongoing Testing- Throughout the Fall Semester

Once the results from the return tests are completed, about 15% of all residential and non-residential students will undergo weekly testing. By continuing to test students at random, the university hopes to identify asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infections.

Students who feel ill or feel they have the symptoms are advised to go to Student Health Services immediately to be tested. The rapid testings will acquire results within an hour.

Additional questions should be asked in an email to the university’s Online Support at [email protected].

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