A testing plan released by the University of Vermont last week has done little to quell community concerns about bringing nearly 10,000 students back to Burlington, despite earning cautious praise from some experts.
Public health and infectious disease experts say the university’s plan to test all students ahead of their arrival in Vermont, and then weekly through the third week of September, is reasonable. But through op-eds, interviews, social media posts and a petition that has been circulating online, residents and city leaders have expressed persistent worries about the impending influx of students.
On Wednesday, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger joined the ranks of concerned Burlingtonians.
Weinberger said he supports bringing students back to the city, but in a three-page letter sent to UVM President Suresh Garimella, the mayor laid out a laundry list of concerns the city has with UVM’s reopening plan, including six specific complaints about the school’s testing policy.
“We don’t have that coordinated plan that I can fully support as of today, and time is running short on this,” he said at his Wednesday media briefing. “We’re just over two weeks out. I continue to have questions and concerns about aspects of UVM’s plan.”
Weinberger raised issues with a number of logistical aspects of the proposal. In the letter, he called on the university to impose stricter penalties on students who miss a test, and for the school to provide more transparency about testing results.
Currently, students who miss a test will lose access to their CATCard, which swipes them into campus buildings, according to an email sent to UVM affiliates about the testing policy.
“UVM has not articulated a strong enforcement strategy for your testing plan, and uneven compliance could threaten the sacrifices that Burlingtonians have collectively made to keep transmission rates low,” Weinberger wrote. “De-activation of CATCards is a potentially helpful sanction, but more meaningful incentives are needed during a pandemic.”
The mayor added that the university’s plan to release the total number of positive cases each week is “unacceptable” and called for the university to do so daily.
“As a result of the lag between infection and when individuals test positive, test results are a lagging indicator of infections to begin with, and a further delay because of weekly reporting will undermine efforts to contain and suppress the virus,” he wrote.
In an emailed statement to VTDigger, UVM spokesperson Enrique Corredera wrote that the university will respond to the mayor.
“We have had many discussions with the city, and we welcome the opportunity to continue those discussions,” he wrote. “The university is carefully and aggressively taking all appropriate steps to ensure that our strategy meets or exceeds the state’s Safe and Healthy Return to Campus guidance.”
Weinberger also requested that the university “review the decision” to only test students once per week through Sept. 18 — a shift from the school’s previous commitment to twice-weekly testing.
The mayor pointed to a recent study by Harvard and Yale researchers that found that colleges will likely need to test students every two days in order to control infections on campus. The report’s lead author, though — Yale professor A. David Paltiel — said this week he’s open to the school’s approach to testing frequency.
“It’s not the frequency that we’re suggesting is likely to be necessary, but on the other hand, every single school in the country needs to adjust our analysis to the particulars of the surrounding community,” Paltiel said. “Chittenden County is Vermont’s hotspot, but it’s hardly hot by comparison to the rest of the country. It doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable point of departure.”
Pre-arrival testing for students will be conducted via saliva test kits provided through a partnership between UVM and Vault Health, a company that specializes in boosting male testosterone that began producing Covid-19 saliva tests after the Food and Drug Administration gave the method emergency authorization in May. Students who test positive will be required to isolate at home.
“I think it’s a really thoughtful testing strategy to address, sort of, the first wave of concern that comes up when a bunch of students move to town from other areas,” said Dr. Tim Lahey, an infectious disease professor at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine, who has consulted the school on its reopening plan.
Lahey said that saliva tests are “not quite as good at detecting infection” as the nasal swabs that the state uses for its testing. Still, he said it is an “acceptable approach” for the school to use for pre-screening. The Vault tests use the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method.
Tracy Dolan, the deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health, said the state is looking into whether it will need to confirm positive test results with a second PCR test.
“Our lab has not yet done the research to find out what we might do with those results and whether or not we need to confirm,” she said.
Regular on-campus testing will be conducted on the first floor of the Davis Center through a partnership with the Broad Institute, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, nonprofit affiliated with Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Nationally, with many labs lacking crucial supplies and facing testing bottlenecks, there has been concern among some top federal officials that colleges signing contracts with private labs will further bog down the system by taking up lab testing capacity.
Bill Church, a biochemist and former UVM faculty member who founded the company Green Mountain Antibodies, said he fears the school may not be able to get its test results within the 24-hour window it is planning on.
In his letter to Garimella, Weinberger called on UVM to put forth a contingency plan should there be delays in testing.
“With testing delays across the country an unresolved and potentially growing problem that could impact testing facilities in this region, we are requesting an understanding of how UVM is thinking about acceptable wait times for test results, and what kind of delays would trigger the need for a dramatic re-thinking of its on campus posture,” he wrote.
The Broad Institute, which is partnering with numerous other New England schools, also contracts with some Vermont long-term care facilities that the state is paying for testing at, according to Department of Health spokesperson Ben Truman.
Broad’s current processing capacity is 35,000 tests per day, though it says it is working to increase that number. Its agreement with UVM is still being finalized.
Despite the university’s plan to process more than 10,000 tests per week, Dolan said she is unconcerned about UVM itself jamming up capacity.
“We’re not worried uniquely about the testing that UVM is doing,” she said. “We do have a concern overall about lab capacity in the country, period. And so, it’s a problem for everyone.”
“We’re glad, actually, that the colleges are contracting with other labs because we’re not able to take on all of the testing at our lab,” she added. “We need to preserve some of our capacity for things like outbreaks, or Department of Corrections or something that might happen.”
It remains unclear what will happen to testing frequency after Sept. 18. At that point, said Corredera, the UVM spokesperson, “We will again assess appropriate testing frequency in consultation with public health and medical experts based on analysis of data to date.”
UVM declined to make officials involved in its reopening planning available to VTDigger this week. Interview requests to Vice President for Operations and Public Safety Gary Derr (who heads the UVM Strong committee that is planning reopening), Medical Director Dr. Michelle Paavola and Vice Provost for Student Affairs Annie Stevens were redirected to school communications officials.
Experts say that testing, while crucial, is only half the battle. Paltiel said that testing has to go “hand-in-hand with strict vigilance and attention” to social distancing and basic public health protocols.
As Lahey put it: “We know that students don’t just stay in their dorm room or just stay on campus in town.”
“The first wave is testing everybody as they arrive, and I think this is a good plan for that,” Lahey said. “And then we know that over time, people are going to get exposed and develop infection, and so the question is, having gone through that first chapter of our containment approach correctly, then what?”
Having the infrastructure for robust contact tracing will be critical, he said.
Asked about potential infections, Corredera said a student who tests positive for the virus “will be required to isolate.” The school plans to reserve the capacity to house 5% of the on-campus population in isolation or quarantine, according to its July 7 return to campus plan.
In his letter, Weinberger wrote that he does “not understand” why UVM will not make available its isolation beds for off-campus students — an issue that he wrote has been raised repeatedly by the city.
Dolan said the state will partner with UVM to conduct contract tracing if an individual tests positive. Health Department officials have been meeting with representatives from colleges on a weekly basis to work on reopening strategies.
“I think that we are feeling as good as we can feel with the information that we have,” Dolan said. “Obviously, there is some sense of trepidation as we see that the numbers around us continue to go up. So for that reason, we’ve really worked with colleges and they have also taken it very seriously to see what we can do to mitigate the impact of that.”
Many Vermont students are skeptical about whether their peers will adhere to public health restrictions. Still, only 1,300 UVM undergrads have chosen the stay-at-home option so far, according to Corredera.
Weinberger called on the school to “outline more clear standards that students who live off campus will be required to meet, inclusive of information about how you will monitor and enforce these standards.”
“UVM has many options for establishing and enforcing requirements for students regardless of their residence, from class registration to enrollment status to publicly releasing names and locations of off campus parties that violate the Governor’s Order,” Weinberger wrote.
“During the pandemic, this is not only a quality of life issue but is now, potentially, a matter of life and death,” he added. “We need an alternative proposal now for how we will address this substantial and legitimate community concern.”
Corredera wrote that the university’s Office of Student and Community Relations “has been in ongoing communication with our students and responding to concerns raised by members of the neighborhood.” He pointed to the Green and Gold Promise — a pledge that all on-campus students have to sign mandating public health guidelines.
“Students who don’t follow the expectations stated in the promise, will face consequences through our conduct process from an educational sanction to a fine and probation to a fine and suspension,” Corredera wrote.
Still, Rep. Barbara Rachelson, D-Burlington, said she has “big concerns” about campus reopening. Earlier this week, two UVM basketball players tested positive for the virus, forcing both the men’s and women’s squads to halt their training.
“I feel like we’re playing Russian roulette,” Rachelson said. “And I know it’s hard for the university. They have financial pressure, but if somebody dies — or many people die — that’s going to be unacceptable. I’m just not sure why universities are wanting to take that kind of risk right now.”
Correction (Aug. 10, 10:12 p.m.): The FDA has not given full approval for saliva tests. It has given “emergency authorization” for their use.
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