Temple University will assign students to one of four COVID-19 testing groups for the Summer 2021 semesters, which will determine the location and frequency of their regular COVID-19 tests, wrote Mark Denys, director of Student Health Services, in an email to students on Thursday.
Group assignments will be based on the amount of time a student is expected to be on or in close proximity to Temple’s Main Campus and whether a student has been fully vaccinated, Denys wrote.
People who receive the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, which requires two doses at least 21 and 28 days apart, respectively, are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving their second dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who receive the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving their shot.
Denys urges all members of the Temple community to become fully vaccinated, he added.
“The COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to significantly decrease the chance that you will contract the disease and are effective at preventing hospitalization and death among those who do contract COVID-19,” Denys wrote.
Morgan Hall’s testing site will continue to test individuals who have symptoms of COVID-19 or have been identified by contact tracers as someone who has been in close contact with a person that has tested positive for COVID-19, Denys wrote.
Students can schedule a testing appointment at Morgan Hall site by selecting “MORGAN HALL” on the patient health portal or by calling 215-304-7500 and pushing prompt two, Denys wrote.
Here are Temple’s testing plans for this summer:
TESTING GROUPS
The first testing group includes students who are fully vaccinated, have completed the immunization notification process in the patient health portal and do not have symptoms of COVID-19, Denys wrote.The first testing group also consists of students who are learning virtually, only using virtual academic resources and are not coming to Main Campus, he added.
The university will only test these students if they have COVID-19 symptoms or are identified as a close contact, Denys added. Symptoms of COVID-19 include, but are not limited to fever, chills, cough and shortness of breath, according to the CDC.
The university only considers students fully vaccinated if they have uploaded a record of their vaccine card to the patient health portal, Denys wrote.
The second testing group consists of students who are not fully vaccinated and live in on-campus housing, take in-person courses that meet two or more times each week or live in the 19121, 19122, 19123, 19130, 19132 or 19133 ZIP codes while taking an in-person class that meets at least once per week, Denys wrote.
The second testing group also includes student workers who work on campus for two or more days per week and are not fully vaccinated, and students who are not fully vaccinated and come to campus more than once per week, he added.
The university requires students in the second testing group to be tested twice per week. Students in this group are advised to schedule their testing appointments for Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays and not to schedule testing appointments for consecutive days, Denys wrote.
The third testing group consists of students taking in-person classes at least once per week who are not fully vaccinated and live outside of the specified ZIP codes. The third testing group also includes student workers who are not fully vaccinated and work on campus fewer than two days each week and students who are not fully vaccinated and occasionally come to campus, Denys wrote.
Students in the third testing group are required to be tested once per week and are advised to schedule their weekly testing appointments on Wednesdays, Denys wrote.
The fourth testing group consists of students who live off campus in the 19121, 19122, 19123, 19130, 19132 or 19133 ZIP codes and are taking all of their summer courses remotely as well as students who come to campus regularly only to use campus facilities and services, he wrote.
The fourth testing group also includes students who are enrolled in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Kornberg School of Dentistry, School of Pharmacy, School of Podiatric Medicine and the College of Public Health, as these schools will provide their own information on COVID-19 testing for students in clinical rotations, Denys wrote.
The university is providing students in the fourth testing group with the option to be tested. The university recommends students in the fourth group schedule appointments on Wednesdays if they choose to be tested, but students in the School of Podiatric Medicine are recommended to schedule their appointments on Tuesdays, Denys wrote.
TESTING AND TEST RESULTS
Students can use the patient health portal to schedule their testing appointments on Temple’s Main Campus or the Health Sciences Campus, Denys wrote.
Students can also schedule their COVID-19 testing appointments at the testing site at the Great Court in Mitten Hall, which is open Monday through Thursday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Denys wrote.
Other campus testing sites include Pharmacy Room 230 at the School of Pharmacy, which is open Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the Podiatry Residence Hall Room 126 at the School of Podiatric Medicine, which is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., he wrote.
All COVID-19 tests are self-administered like in the Spring 2021 semester, Denys wrote.
Test results will be available between 12 and 36 hours after the test is administered, Denys wrote.
Students will receive a text or email if their test results are negative, while students who test positive will receive a call from a Student Health Services staff member, who will provide information on what they should do next, Denys wrote.
Students can opt-in to receive text messages from Student Health Services by going to the Forms section of the patient health portal and can also download a PDF of their test results in the portal, Denys wrote.
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