Covid Tracking at Santa Clara

Positive Tests Reported to 5100 Protect the Larger Community

“I think one of the things to keep in mind is yes, this is a pandemic and yes, we’re all really scared and want to know everything, but this literally only started 7 months ago. I know this school really wants students to come back on campus so I think the first step is to start testing people frequently,” said Christian Jimenez, a biochemistry student and EMT at Santa Clara.

Free Testing Tuesdays, which are open from 9 a.m to 12 p.m every Tuesday at Cowell Health Center, have been up and running for 4 weeks at Santa Clara. On this day of the week, Santa Clara students and staff can get tested on campus for free. 

These tests were just made free as of 4 weeks ago, following a decision by the administration to make the tests free to encourage students and staff to get tested, to gain a deeper understanding of how the coronavirus is affecting our community, and to take the appropriate steps moving forward.

“We didn’t want to offer many services that would encourage students to come to the area,” said Assistant Vice President for University Operations, Chris Shay, about the university’s provided testing services for the fall quarter, as initially these services weren’t free after the first test. “The thought process was if we discourage that, then we have students safely at home. It became apparent that we had more students around our campus, and not a great way to track this, if they’re at home or at our campus.”

Regardless of whether students are getting tested outside of campus facilities or experiencing symptoms, it is critical that they report if they are positive to 408-554-5100, the start of the university’s contact tracing program.

“If students don’t call and report it then that’s our weak link,” said Shay. “Please use 5100 to report.” There is no attribution to the student who tested positive. The administration uses that information to respond and keep everyone else safe. It’s totally anonymous.

The contact tracing program is led by Dr. David Hess, Department Chair of the Biology Department and Dr. Craig Stephens, Professor in the Biology Department and Public Health Program.

“This is really weird for us too,” said Dr. Hess, “as professors who miss being in the classroom. We’re really trying to leverage the small kind of intimate community at Santa Clara. People know each other, people trust each other, and just trying to leverage that to keep people safe.”

Information from this number not only allows others who have been exposed to the virus to be immediately notified, but also allows the university to know which classrooms or areas of classrooms to clean if someone with the virus has been on campus. Cowell also uses this information to let the student or staff member know what to expect throughout having the virus. 

The university plans to expand its contact tracing program in the winter when more students return to Santa Clara. While only a fraction of Santa Clara students have access to university testing at the moment from living close to campus, the university provides a total of three hours of testing per week. 

Shay explained that the administration is, “looking at many changes to the testing process to continue to maintain short wait times for a larger student population and a safe environment for the faculty and staff that work at the testing sites.”

Students will also be mandated to test once per week in the winter. According to Shay, the university worked closely with the County of Santa Clara Public Health Officer on developing the testing protocol for Santa Clara University. “We have decided to go above the required testing protocol outlined in County Guidance,” he said. “Mandating testing more than once a week, while higher than required, begins to become an undue burden on students, faculty and staff with less incremental safety provided.”

“They’ve done a great job creating new protocols for Santa Clara, getting data with the tracing program in Santa Clara county, and finding a lab in Los Angeles to ship all our tests to every week and get those in a quick turnaround within 2-3 days,” said Jimenez. “That is an incredible feat to have accomplished within the last 2 months.”

Information from on on-campus testing and contact tracing is visible on the On Campus Testing Dashboard. 

On this dashboard, viewers are able to see the total number of cases at Santa Clara. As of Oct. 28th, the university has totaled 49 confirmed cases. Viewers are also able to see how many active cases there are at the moment, which currently rests at zero.

As a resident in the off campus community, Jimenez suspects underreporting of positive cases within the area, making him skeptical of the accuracy of the SCU Database numbers. 

Looking forward, Shay sees big hurdles coming up in terms of how to deal with and distribute the vaccine when it comes, which he said, “will require a lot of trust as well.”

“That’s what we are all after. Our students to be back on campus and getting the education that we all know is so critical that they get,” said Shay. 

If students have any questions regarding this, then they can reach out to Chris Shay, Deepa Arora, or Jeanne Rosenberger at any time.