LAWRENCE, Kan. — Amid the coronavirus pandemic, there isn't the usual hustle and bustle of move-in day at the University of Kansas.
"The hardest part would be wearing the masks and moving everything because you get really hot really fast, so you have to take a lot of breaks," Julia Karschner, a sophomore, said.
Before Karschner and her boyfriend, Steven Leasure, received the keys to their dorm room, they were tested for COVID-19.
"Whenever you're in there, it takes a little while to get all the test stuff ready, and I feel if just too many people were here, it will take a really long time to get everything done," Leasure said.
Besides staggering the move-in process over the course of the month, KU is requiring all incoming students and faculty regardless of whether they're staying on-campus or off to be tested.
"We want to test everybody who's sick right now and find out who those people are so that we can help get them into isolation and quarantine and slow the spread," Andrew Foster, KU's emergency management coordinator, said.
One KU test site sees about 1,000 people daily. In total, nearly 20,000 individuals will be tested, and testing will continue throughout the semester.
While many parts of the country are struggling with receiving test results in a timely manner, that's not the case at KU. The university has partnered with a lab in Lenexa to get the results of COVID-19 saliva tests in a day or two.
"If we start seeing one community that has a higher level of spread, we're going to do rapid testing of that community and test everybody within it," Foster said.
KU also is making students sign a pledge card promising that they'll practice social distancing.
"It’s a lot harder to socialize and make friends," Mari Boggio, an incoming freshman said, "but you know, as long as you're finding your people like on your floor and in your activities and stuff like that, I feel like it'll just be a little slower process to get acclimated."
