To: Wellesley College Faculty and Staff
From: Piper Orton, Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer, and Karen Petrulakis, General Counsel
Re: Reminders About COVID-19 Testing and Health and Safety Measures
Date: September 8, 2021
We are writing to update you about COVID-19 testing and other elements of our multilayered approach to health and safety this fall.
Vaccinations
Our community has achieved a 99 percent vaccination rate, one of the most important steps to protect the health and safety of the community. A small group is eligible now for a third dose (not booster) of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. It will be important for all others to obtain a booster shot as soon as you are eligible. Please stay in contact with your primary care physician regarding access to booster shots based on your own situation.
Weekly testing for faculty and staff
All faculty and staff who will be on campus at least one day per week are required to be tested once weekly during the semester as part of the pooled PCR asymptomatic testing program with the Broad Institute. Students are being tested twice weekly. With pooled testing, all individuals are tested using a nasal swab, and the samples are analyzed in groups of 10. This means we will be conducting 5,600 tests per week. We ask that you respond promptly to telephone calls, emails, and/or texts regarding testing follow-up, as identifying positive cases quickly is essential to containing community transmission of COVID-19.
Please take these steps to ensure that your testing experience goes smoothly and that we can reach you promptly if needed:
- Please make sure your mobile number is correct and that you have identified your mobile as your “primary” home number in Workday. We will use this number to contact you regarding positive test results or possible exposures.
- In the Fall 2021 Documentation Toolbox, select your preferred days of the week for testing. Make sure you select testing days when you are planning to be on campus the next day and can retest if requested to do so.
- Bring your OneCard with you to the testing center. Once you swipe your OneCard at the testing center, make sure your name appears on the computer screen indicating that you are cleared for testing.
- Save the phone number for Contact Tracing (781.474.0383) in your phone so that you will recognize a phone call from this number. Contact tracers will also be emailing from contacttracing@wellesley.edu.
- Occupational and Environmental Health Network (OEHN) nurses may need to reach you regarding your health or possible COVID-19 exposures, so please respond immediately to their calls or voicemails. These numbers will identify the caller as “OEHN RN” with the name of the nurse.
The first time your results are available, you will receive an email from Wellesley COVID Testing (campuskey@wellesley.edu via notify.schooltesting.org) that will ask you to register. Use your main Wellesley email address (the one with your username), not one of your aliases, when you register to view your results and select a password. Subsequent test results will come from this same email address. Do not forward your registration email to anyone else, as this email contains a unique link to your personal testing data.
If your primary phone number in Workday is a mobile phone, you will also receive a text from 38656. All other test-related emails will come from campuskey@wellesley.edu. If you are not receiving these emails from either Wellesley COVID Testing or campuskey@wellesley.edu, please check your spam folder.
A pooled test will return one of the following results:
- No follow-up testing needed: Test result was negative for COVID-19.
- Inconclusive, Unsatisfactory, TNP, or Invalid: The pooled test samples could not be analyzed for one or more reasons. If this occurs, each person in the pool will receive an email and/or text with instructions to retest immediately with another pooled test.
- Individual retest required: COVID-19 was detected in the pool, but it does not mean there was a positive COVID-19 test for any particular individual in the pool.
If COVID-19 is detected in a pooled test:
- Each person in the pool will receive an email and/or text with instructions to retest immediately at the College Club with both individual BinaxNOW (rapid antigen) and individual PCR tests.
- The College Club is open seven days per week to facilitate immediate retesting for students, faculty, and staff. Please see the chart below or consult the Fall 2021 Documentation Toolbox for weekly schedules.
- Do not go to class, start your shift, or go to the office until you have been retested. (Students who are notified that their pool test is positive will receive the same instructions and will be reminded that they will be excused from class or work on campus for retesting.)
- Take extra precautions until you receive negative results from both your BinaxNOW rapid test and your individual PCR follow-up tests. Please wear a mask at all times (even outdoors), maintain physical distancing, and do not eat with others on campus.
- An individual is not considered positive until an individual positive test result is confirmed. Individuals will be isolated immediately based on a positive BinaxNOW rapid test, subject to confirmation through the individual PCR result.
- You will be contacted regarding BinaxNOW test results as soon as 30 minutes after testing. Negative results will be shared via email and text, similar to other test results. Faculty and staff will receive notification of a positive result through a phone call from an OEHN nurse. To ensure quick notification, please make sure to provide the testing staff with your correct mobile number before leaving the testing center, and, as noted above, please make sure you have registered to receive test results.
If you have questions about your test results, email campuskey@wellesley.edu.
Test results from the Broad Institute were delayed significantly for several days this past week, but the response time has returned to the levels we saw over the course of the past year (within 24 hours from the time the samples are delivered to the Broad Institute).
Do not come to campus and do not get tested on campus if you are experiencing symptoms. Fill out the symptom tracker in the Fall 2021 Documentation Toolbox, and a nurse from OEHN will contact you to advise you about next steps.
Please report exposures and off-campus positive tests in the Fall 2021 Documentation Toolbox, and an OEHN nurse or contact tracer will contact you to advise you about next steps.
Isolation and quarantine
If a student or employee is confirmed to be positive with BinaxNOW or an individual PCR test, the following steps will be taken:
- OEHN will contact employees and Health Services provided by Newton-Wellesley Collegiate Health will contact students to instruct them to isolate for 10 days (students will be moved to isolation space on campus, and faculty and staff will isolate at home).
- One of our contact tracers will get in touch with the individual to identify close contacts (more than 15 minutes within six feet indoors within a 24-hour period).
- Contacts who are vaccinated, including faculty teaching an in-person class in which a student has tested positive, will be contacted by email or text and notified they are a close contact. Contacts who are vaccinated do not need to quarantine unless they are symptomatic. You will be asked to take additional precautions to protect against the spread of infection: masking, physical distancing, refraining from eating with others on campus, being attentive to symptoms, and testing twice during the week.
- Contacts who are unvaccinated will be contacted by phone and will need to quarantine for 10 days (students will be moved to quarantine spaces on campus, and faculty and staff will quarantine at home).
- The OEHN nurse will follow up with employees who test positive regarding release to return to work.
Here is the upcoming testing schedule:
| Date | Testing Location and Availability for Faculty and Staff | |
|---|---|---|
| Week of Monday, September 6 | Testing is taking place at the Beebe dining hall through Friday. You may come without an appointment between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. Faculty and staff concerned about accessibility may be tested at the College Club. | |
| Week of Monday, September 13, and thereafter | You will receive an email from campuskey@wellesley.edu each Saturday evening (starting September 11) based on your indicated preferences for testing day and location. You may come without an appointment on the assigned day.
Test site schedule: |
We encourage all faculty and staff to complete a COVID-19 safety training provided by Suzanne Howard, director of environmental health and safety. We will post a recording of the training on your Fall 2021 Documentation Toolbox within the next few days.
Please remember to check the Keeping Wellesley Healthy website often for the latest information on Wellesley’s approach to health and safety this fall, and email campuskey@wellesley.edu with any questions regarding testing.
Thank you for your cooperation and commitment.
