News
By Sejal Govindarao
Feb 17, 2021 11:20 PM
GW is now offering self-administered COVID-19 tests for asymptomatic students.
Officials said in a release earlier this month that the new testing method will use “pooling” to test multiple samples at once and is intended to provide more support for students as the University seeks to reopen as much as possible in the fall. Students and experts in COVID-19 testing and higher education said self-testing could be slightly less accurate than health care provider tests, but the option could help more students get tested frequently.
“As our understanding of best practices around COVID-19 has evolved, we’ve been slowly but surely adding to our on-campus cohort – this semester we added approximately another 1,000 residential students, and at the same time we’ve added additional in-person classes and increased our on-campus research,” Scott Burnotes, the vice president for safety and facilities, said in the release earlier this month. “So we’re putting the tools in place to support a continued increase.”