The Alestle Vol. 74 No. 5

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T H E

REMEMBER THE ‘QUAD PREACHER’? HERE’S WHERE HE IS NOW. page 2

thursday, 09.17.20

ALESTLE

BEST BOBA TEA IN THE METRO EAST page 4 & 5

vol. 74 no. 5

The Student Voice Since 1960

Beyond the numbers: 294,526 Tests Conducted

294,526 Tests Conducted

SIUE to add mandatory Faculty raise red flags regarding SIUE’s COVID-19 testing, contact tracing by 2021 testing process, fear undetected outbreak

COVID-19 Numbers in Illinois Colleges

GABRIEL BRADY reporter

7,587

Tests Conducted

Statistics collected from each college’s website.

3,603

Tests Conducted

1,760 Positive Cases

45

147

University of Illinois requires all students and employees who visit campus to get tested. Additionally, any students living in Champaign, Urbana or Savoy must get tested, even if all their courses are online. U of I’s enrollment for the Fall 2020 semester is 52,331.

N/A Tests Conducted

Positive Cases

Tests Conducted

University of IL Urbana-Champaign

1,383

SIUE

GABRIEL BRADY reporter

The University of Illinois made headlines for its system of mandatory COVID-19 testing, which revealed a spike in cases on campus. A similar COVID-19 testing system will soon be at SIUE, but some community members wonder why it wasn’t already in place, and what damage has been done in its absence. Faculty Association President Mark Poepsel said since SIUE has no system of testing all on-campus individuals, there may be an undetected outbreak. “One of the things this year that pro-

Confirmed positive cases (from tests conducted by SIUE and self-reporting): Sept. 4 - 10: 11 students, 2 faculty/staff Aug. 28 - Sept. 3: 7 students, 4 faculty/staff Aug. 21 - 27: 4 students, 3 faculty/staff Aug. 14 - 20: 4 students, 3 faculty/staff Aug. 7 - 13: 2 students, 2 faculty/staff Aug. 1 - 6: 2 students, 1 faculty/staff Total positive cases: 30 students, 15 faculty/staff

Tests conducted by SIUE Sept. 4 - 10: 54 Aug. 28 - Sept. 3: 63 Aug. 21 - 27: 30 Total tests conducted: 147

Positive cases identified by SIUE testing: Sept. 4 - 10: 4 Aug. 28 - Sept. 3: 5 Aug. 21 - 27: 1 Total: 10

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Positive Cases

Positive Cases

Western IL University

SIUC is also operating under an optional, by-appointment system for testing; however, on-campus testing just became available beginning Sept. 14 and will only be provided two days a week. SIUC’s current enrollment is 11,366.

Percentage of isolation/quarantine space available on campus (as of Sept.10):

IL State University

Western is requiring all members of its community to complete a daily self-check questionnaire before coming to campus. Testing is optional and is currently not available on campus. Western’s total enrollment is 7,490.

fessors [from all around the country] are talking about is what cities are the worst for spreading COVID, and they’re almost always college towns. It’s simple logic: where they test more, they find more cases. Like at U of I, [St. Louis University and] University of Iowa, you have plenty of cases. It’s more of an issue of we’re not testing enough people and don’t know how bad it is,” Poepsel said. “And [as of early September] there [were] only five to 10 people on campus that have it. That can’t be true, and that means our system has a problem.” Although there is no system of mandatory testing, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Jeffrey Waple said SIUE most like-

BY THE NUMBERS

COVID-19 at SIUE

97

SIUC

SIUE offers free, optional on-campus screening tests to students and employees through Health Service. Testing can be done by appointment on weekdays; although, individuals are asked to contact their health care providers or Health Service rather than signing up for appointments through Health Service’s online portal if they are experiencing symptoms or have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive. SIUE’s total enrollment for the Fall 2020 semester is 12,860.

Positive Cases

124

At ISU, testing is optional but available at multiple locations on campus. Students with symptoms may be tested by appointment at ISU’s Student Health Services during weekdays. Those not experiencing symptoms have two additional testing location options. ISU’s enrollment for the fall semester is 20,720. | Summer Bradley / The Alestle

ly does not have an undetected outbreak, because he thinks SIUE has controlled the virus better than other colleges. “My opinion is I think the test results are [accurate] for students at SIUE. We don’t have a downtown bar district like most colleges, or fraternity or sorority houses. Fraternities and sororities at SIUE actually voted to not have any informal events, and there have been no football games either,” Waple said. “With all of that and low campus density as well, I’m not surprised [the number of cases on campus is] this low.” see TESTING on page 3 Madison County Confirmed Cases by Day

95 percent

Chart from gisportal.co.madison.il.us

Required precautions

Madison County is part of Region 4, which is currently grappling with the following precautionary measures: -Bars and restaurants must close at 11 p.m. and may not open earlier than 6 a.m. Indoor dining is prohibited. -All gatherings are limited to 25 guests or 25 percent room capacity, whichever is less. -Casinos must close at 11 p.m. and abide by the same regulations as bars and restaurants when serving food and drinks. -Party buses cannot operate.

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The Alestle

SIUE leaders revealed plans to implement a mandatory COVID-19 testing process for students and employees on campus and to hire a contact tracer during a COVID-19 update webinar held Sept. 11. During the webinar, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Jeffrey Waple said SIUE has had plans to create a mandatory testing process for a while, but it is now being put into motion. To bring mandatory testing to campus, the university has formed a working group to develop a plan in coordination with Shield T3, the organization that is making the saliva test developed by University of Illinois available to other colleges. “We’re going to put together a team that [former Director of University Housing] Mike Schultz is going to lead, with members across campus, that will develop a plan that will look at … mandatory testing in January, with a pilot to start in November,” Waple said. “After talking with the SHIELD program developers, it takes a good couple weeks to get a site identified, get people trained and hired to do the testing … There’s a whole bunch of logistical things that need to be set up. We’re going to task that group and form it later next week.” Waple said the partnership came about through many meetings with SHIELD and staff across the SIU system. “We had a meeting with the SHIELD program directors … with myself, [Chancellor Randy] Pembrook, Michael Schultz, [Director of Health Service] Riane Greenwalt and [Vice Chancellor for Administration] Rich Walker, along with representatives from the Carbondale campus, and [SIU] System President Dan Mahony … discussing [SHIELD’s] programming, and their applicability to our college campus,” Waple said. “From that discussion … there are many logistical things to be set up, like contracts and those types of things, but it looks like in the upcoming months, we’ll be ready to use SHIELD.” As well as mandatory tests for individuals on campus, Greenwalt said there will soon be a contact tracer at SIUE. The contact tracer will help identify people who were in close contact with individuals that have tested positive for COVID-19. “Madison County has hired and is training our own on-site contact tracer so that we’ll have a quicker turnaround time for our students to acknowledge who they’ve been around, and get information out to those close-contact exposure students quicker … If faculty, staff or students are seeing people on campus who seem to be missing from the classroom, they could possibly be a close-contact exposure,” Greenwalt said. To watch the town hall, visit siue. techsmithrelay.com/1wwq. alestlelive.com


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