New coronavirus testing program at Ole Miss

A new program called the Sentinel Testing Program aims to test people with no symptoms to further the university's understanding of the coronavirus and its spread.

Of mississippi is giving free coronravirus tests to students and faculty on campus as part of a new program.

W-t-v-a's bronson woodruff joins us now live from oxford with the purpose of this program.

Ole miss is using the sentinel testing program.

According to a press release, its purpose is to give the university a better understanding of the virus' presence in people without symptoms and how it spreads on the campus.

."

"what most people think about is the symptomatic drive-thru testing, cough, fever."

Alex langhart is director of university health services at ole miss.

He said this new non-traditional coronavirus testing is part of a new program to better understand the virus on campus.

"we've set it up to where we can do up to 500 tests per week, so that's actually 250 twice a day during a week."

University student caleb colley said he received an invitation.

'i know why they've been having good response rates, so that's why i showed up today."

He said he was happy to participate.

"they want to see how it spreads, so i feel like i'm doing my part by responding to the invite."

The university invites random people every week to show up and get tested.

"from that, we are hoping we can kind of check what the actual prevalence of the virus is in our campus community from that rate."

Standup: "one of the workers said the swabs are very expensive.

She didn't give me a dollar amount, but indicated they were possibly over a hundred dollars.

After the tests are conducted, the swabs go into this van over here."

"we're reaching out to those who don't have symptoms, may not even know they have it."

Langhart said results come back within a few hours.

A press release describing the testing program said so far, the campus has sent out four thousand invitations to people for the free test.

"we're really hoping that we'll be able to get a better grasp of what's going on on our campus as far as the prevalence of the virus spread."

Langhart said the ultimate goal is to return to a sense of normalcy.

"maybe institute a more of a mitigation strategy to keep it from spreading any further, or seeing that what we've already put in place is working, and to keep it up, then maybe try to loosen some things up so people can have as close to a normal college experience as they can."

University health services conducts testing on tuesdays and thursdays appointment only.

In oxford, bronson woodruff, w-t-v-a nine news.

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