Non-profit helps Historically Black Colleges and Universities test for coronavirus

ATLANTA - Coronavirus testing will be a major challenge as students at U.S. colleges and universities head back to campus for the first time in five months.

The non-profit organization Testing for America is working to help 80 Historically Black Colleges and Universities get the rapid testing technology they need to safely reopen their campuses this fall.

At Fort Valley State University, an HBCU in middle Georgia, freshman Leela Whittler says she is so ready to begin her college experience.

But, as excited as she is, she says, she is concerned.

"I don't want to get sick," Whittler explains.

Her mom worries about the novel coronavirus, too.

"She's stressed out about it," Whittler says.  "She calls me every day, checking up on me."

Yet, Destiny Crawford, who recently graduated from Atlanta's Benjamin Mays High School, says there are  signs everywhere on campus, reminding students to wear masks and wash their hands.

"If you have any symptoms, or anything, they don't let you in the (classroom) building," Crawford says.  "They tell you to go straight to the nursing clinic."

In a pandemic that has hit people of color especially hard, Delaware ear, nose and throat surgeon Dr. Joan Coker, a graduate of 3 different HBCU's, says many Black parents feel torn about sending their children back to campus while the virus is still surging in many areas of the country.

"You've got families that really are the essential employees of this nation," Dr. Coker says.  "So, for them to throw caution to the wind and send their child, their student, back to school without a scientific strategy? It's not going to happen, and we can't tolerate that hit."

To try to help HBCU's conduct widescale COVID-19 testing, the non-profit Testing for America has teamed up with The Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) and The United Negro College Fund (UNCF),

to provide rapid genetic-based COVID-19 testing at no cost to HBCU’s.

Coker, who is acting as an advisor to Testing for America, says the test is self-administered and simple.

"You simply take a Q-Tip, and that student, that faculty person, that cafeteria person, swabs the front of their nose, 10 seconds on each side," Coker says.  "That person then drops that swab into a test tube, which then goes into a baggie, and everything gets shipped out to be processed."

They can get results, she says, in 24 to 36 hours.

"The fact that people are waiting 14, 17 days, that's not going to work, for anybody," she says.

Dr. Coker says her organization will help HBCU's track virus hot spots and advise the schools on whom to screen and how often to conduct testing.

"So, out of the gate, we're going to test pretty frequently," Coker says.  "Like, the first couple of months, it's going to be frequently.  But, then, we're going to do a more measured response."

Testing for America launched its first round of its HBCU testing program at Delaware State University, where Coker says the testing took an average of about 3 minutes a person.
They hope to get the process down to about a minute, she says.