University reports cases, makes exit testing available to students 

  Wednesday, November 11, 2020 2:30 PM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

Pittsburg State University students will have the opportunity for COVID-19 testing at the Bryant Student Health Center before leaving campus on Nov. 20 to finish the rest of the semester online, as planned, the university announced Wednesday.  

Tests, which will garner results in 24 hours, will be conducted from 9 to 11 a.m. on Nov. 18 and Nov. 19, or 72 hours before students leave.  

“We’re offering these so that students traveling home to families will know their status ahead of time, in an attempt to help mitigate the spread,” said Taylor Panczer, COVID-19 case manager for PSU.  

PSU also announced Wednesday as part of its weekly COVID-19 case report that in the seven days leading up to Wednesday, the Bryant Student Health Center tested 86 symptomatic students. Of those, 32 tested positive — an increase from the previous week.  

Isolation and quarantine numbers also have grown, with 47 in isolation and approximately 100 in quarantine due to close contact with an infected person.     

Among faculty and staff, one new case was reported in the past week. Two faculty/staff members are in isolation. Eleven are in quarantine due to close contact with an infected person. Since reporting began in March, 24 faculty and staff have tested positive, and 61 have had to quarantine due to close contacts.   

“As we see hospitals across the region announce that their ICUs are full and they are having to divert patients, and as we enter the season when more and more people are indoors, it’s critically important that people do what science has demonstrated is effective at slowing the spread,” said Dr. Kathleen Sandness, medical director of the Bryant Student Health Center.  

“Those things are avoiding gatherings with people outside of their immediate family, practicing social distancing when in public, wearing a mask, washing their hands, and staying home if feeling ill,” she said. “It’s also critically important to note that people without symptoms — those who are ‘asymptomatic,’ can carry and spread COVID unknowingly.” 

Panczer noted that the only tested/positive numbers the university can reliably report are those from the Bryant Student Health Center. She also said that isolation and quarantine numbers could differ between reporting agencies due to student being tested elsewhere and then later reporting as PSU students via the Crawford County Health Department. Numbers change daily.