UC Santa Barbara announced in a campus-wide email on Oct. 26 that it will be hosting free, on-campus COVID-19 testing for asymptomatic students from Oct. 27 to Oct. 30 at both the Loma Pelona Center and Calaveras Court.
As of Oct. 26, Isla Vista is currently tied with the City of Santa Maria for the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the county at 31. And at a press conference on Oct. 23, Santa Barbara County Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso announced that the county is currently monitoring COVID-19 outbreaks at five different fraternity and sorority facilities in I.V.
Should the community continue to lead the county in COVID-19 cases, it “will affect winter quarter planning as well as Santa Barbara County’s ability to increase certain business operations,” the UCSB email read.
To help identify and contact trace positive cases in the community, the university said that students are “strongly encouraged” to make appointments for testing, which can be done through the UCSB Testing Patient Portal, according to the email.
Results should be available within 48 hours, according to the email, and students who test positive for COVID-19 will be contacted by UCSB’s COVID-19 Response Team. If students are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, they should instead make an appointment at Student Health and not visit the asymptomatic testing centers.
Other testing locations, such as the Goleta Valley Community Center and I.V. Theater, will continue to offer appointments to students free of charge past the university’s Oct. 30 testing cutoff, according to the email.
Awesome!
UCSB should be testing the entire community. “Testing for all students” is not going to cut it. COVID is not “Halloween” where you fence off university buildings. Hiding behind the Eucalyptus curtain during a pandemic is stupid and irresponsible. You are a public university–started serving this community. The alternative is going to cost you millions. UCSB needs new leadership–NOW.
You are an idiot the school should take care of the students/faculty and the federal gov should be helping test all Americans.
America needs leadership not what we have now.
Exactly, test only UCSB students and forget about the non-UCSB students they are living with and around on a daily basis. Great way to control disease spread. The Federal Government spends millions on UCSB. Time to step up and perform some community service.
UCSB does pay lots of money in community service for IV
You have no idea about the role of the government versus a school. Over time the govt has given less and less money to UCSB seriously hamstringing its ability to do what you want. Now that the students pay a disproportional amount for their education it would not be right to take student money to help support the federal government which refuses to help the people.