Are the Kids Alright?

Covid-19 testing is needed to ensure everyone’s safety, but long wait for results and unreliable tests make a return to “normalcy” difficult. 

By: Riley Mulcahy 
Opinion Columnist 

When Covid-19 spread like wildfire in March of 2020, the whole world was essentially locked down. Schools closed their doors while the economy suffered for the overall wellbeing of society. Testing, and the lack thereof, has made it difficult for everyone to return back to work, school, and everyday life. With the spread of the Omicron variant, finding a PCR test is like finding a rare piece of art. Trying to find a rapid test? Drug stores have been wiped clean, and even if you can find them, rapid at-home tests have been proven to be far less accurate than PCR tests. 

With vaccine and testing requirements being the reasonable response to the changing guidelines and new surge due to Omicron, Saint Mary’s, like many schools, made it mandatory to have a negative test result to return to on-campus housing for Jan Term. The news came as many colleges announced the switch back to online classes, citing the sheer amount of cases and the fear of an outbreak. 

Saint Mary’s announced the requirement to test only four days before students returned to campus on January 3rd. Naturally, students relied on rapid tests to prove they were negative in order to come back to campus, which the university accepted. By not explicitly requiring students to submit a PCR test, the accuracy of the tests must be in question. 

According to Vox, the difference between the PCR test’s accuracy compared to the rapid tests’ is that the PCR test is more sensitive. However, the publication argues that if you test positive on a rapid test, “you almost certainly have Covid-19.” However, rapid tests, which test for antigens, are not as sensitive as the PCR tests, making it possible that you test negative on rapid and positive on the PCR.  

Two years into the pandemic, there is still a struggle and no clear plan on how to deal with the virus and how to test for it. This trickle-down effect makes it difficult for students to learn and retain information, let alone function in everyday life with the stress of a positive test result hanging in the balance. 

Additionally, Saint Mary’s has struggled with its communication surrounding the return to campus for Jan Term and the testing requirements. Given the rapidly changing surge of cases, Saint Mary’s was allowed to announce a concrete plan only days before the planned return. However, it felt like the college was waiting for the last possible moment to announce anything other than a full socially distanced in-person and masked return. Students had to submit two tests to the college, one before move-in and one at Saint Mary’s; however, the use of rapid tests makes one question the precision of the process, with students and faculty feeling a false sense of security with a negative result.

According to Saint Mary’s Covid-19 dashboard, as of January 9th, there have been 41 cases since the return for Jan Term and 122 reported off-campus cases (this number considers the timeframe of 12-10-21 to 1-9-22). To put this number into perspective, according to the Fall 2021 dashboard, there were 45 cases of Covid-19 at Saint Mary’s. 

The number of cases shows that Omicron is here as well as the importance of testing. Although the risk of severe illness reduces significantly when one has been vaccinated, there is still a need to isolate for 5-14 days. The testing process should be painless, and it needs to be. To continue on with life, testing must be perfected so everyone can feel safe about attending class in person.