By Madeline Lanning, Opinion Editor
Students at Susquehanna were informed early in the semester that they would be receiving COVID-19 tests twice a week. For most students this has put quite the damper in their schedules. For others it has proven to be a comfort and relief to know that campus is cracking down on stopping the spread.
While all of this seemed fine in the beginning, students were unaware they would be administering the tests themselves. The testing strategy is no longer the spit test either, it is the nasal swab that most students find uncomfortable. Last semester, anytime someone received the rapid COVID-19 test, it was administered by staff at the health center, so why the sudden change?
Apparently campus policy has allowed for quicker and more accurate results when students swab themselves. In some cases this may seem correct, but for myself and countless others it just seems unnerving. Susquehanna has dumped tons of money into the rapid testing route so having students administer tests themselves seems a bit off putting.
With students swabbing themselves, I can only imagine the amount of corrections being made during the test as they sit in front of their testing official. So instead of wasting time perfecting their craft on how to properly swab, why not just let the staff who was so diligently trained to do this work continue it?
Personally, I don’t think it was a good idea to allow students to begin testing themselves for the simple fact that we are not testing experts. It makes me nervous to think I am administering a test on myself that could affect an entire campus. I for one don’t need to test until my immunity period from having COVID-19 is over, but I can say with certainty that when I go to self-swab that I will be asking repeatedly “am I doing this right?”
Putting myself or anyone else on this campus at risk right now is a huge fear of mine and I’m sure plenty of others’. I believe we should have kept staff as the testing handlers and allowed them to perform the swabbing but I suppose these changes were made with good intentions. Just remember that when the time comes for you to get tested that you do so and do so promptly without any mishaps. We need to stop the spread and keep our campus safe.
