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 The 11 dispensers at UC San Diego since Jan. 2 - with nine more to
be added over the next week or two - are the first of their kind to
be introduced on a college or university campus in the United
States, according to school officials.
Adapted from conventional vending machines, the systems aim to make
it easier and less costly to regularly screen the school's student
body.
All 10,000 students living on campus, accounting for about a quarter
of the school's total enrollment, are required to be tested at least
once a week, up from once every two weeks last quarter, university
officials said.
The test kits are free and can be obtained from the machines with
the swipe of a university ID card. Students then swab their own
nostrils and deposit the sample for collection and analysis by one
of two on-campus laboratories.
Results are usually returned within 12 to 24 hours, UC San Diego
Chancellor Pradeep Khosla told Reuters on Tuesday as he showed off
one of the machines at an indoor campus food court.
"They're an amazing innovation - simple, effective and impactful,"
he said of the machines, which have dispensed thousands of tests a
day since they began operation.
Students may otherwise avail themselves of testing provided at any
of a half-dozen walk-up or drive-through sites on campus.
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 For anyone testing positive,
the university has set up a 600-bed housing unit
where infected students who are asymptomatic or
suffering mild illness can recover in isolation
until they are not contagious.
But the quarantine housing has so far been
sparsely used. Fewer than 600 UC San Diego
students have contracted COVID over the past 10
months, a university spokeswoman said.
All screenings are done using the highly sensitive polymerase chain
reaction, or PCR, tests, which detect traces of viral genetic
material.
UC San Diego also has the most advanced wastewater COVID testing
program of any U.S. college, with sewage samples collected from
campus housing sites scanned every 24 hours. The wastewater
surveillance enables health officials to indirectly screen all
students daily and detect potential outbreaks before they occur.
Despite its ambitious testing, the campus offers fewer than 10% of
its winter undergraduate courses in person, using outdoor classrooms
under special COVID safety restrictions in effect for educational
programs within San Diego County. All other undergraduate courses
are conducted remotely.
(Reporting by Mike Blake in San Diego; Writing and additional
reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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