MACON, Ga. — This week, COVID-19 surveillance testing began at Mercer University.
Dean of Graduate Studies Keith Howard says surveillance testing is randomized testing for people who are asymptomatic.
Testing will be a traditional nasal swab test, with results back within 48 hours.
Howard says the reason surveillance testing will be helpful is not to find the single cases scattered across campus, but to determine where their focus should be as the semester continues.
"Once you begin to see testing either clustering around where students live or where students are taking courses, that would give you a better idea of maybe where we need to target our resources and to be able to prevent a full campus outbreak," he said.
Testing started on September 1, and Howard says the university will decide toward the end of the semester whether or not to continue it.