Empowering Academic Labs and Scientists to Test for COVID-19

Abstract

The lack of widespread COVID-19 testing and the prevalence of asymptomatic infections have been major factors in the current pandemic. Despite the improvements in clinical testing, as we move toward reopening USA, widespread surveillance testing becomes critical. Academic (nonmedical) labs can help provide such testing; the CDC-approved guidelines for COVID-19 testing require routine equipment and protocols that are commonly used in academic research labs around the country. Faculty at the authors' institution were successfully able to test asymptomatic students for COVID-19. By empowering nonmedical academic scientists with preexisting knowledge, expertise with the protocols, and access to the instruments, an additional 1.2-3.5 million COVID-19 tests could be processed each day at local universities and academic labs.SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent for COVID-19 continues to decimate high-risk populations, cripple economies and stress an overtaxed medical system. On the front lines, medical personnel plead for increased personal protective equipment, more test kits and faster turnaround times. With this highly communicable virus, rapid testing is essential to identifying and isolating infected individuals, slowing the spread and containing the disease. Some countries, such as South Korea and Iceland, implemented widespread testing of their populations, resulting in less cases, fewer fatalities and an intact economy [1]. This inverse relationship, whereby increased COVID-19 testing leads to decreased impacts on society, means businesses and schools can reopen safely and the public health concerns remain low because the presumptive infection status of each individual is known, regardless of disease severity. Recent studies of complete populations on cruise ships and isolated aircraft carriers have shown that up to 50% of cases are asymptomatic [2][3][4]. These individuals do not have symptoms and therefore may not be isolating, further spreading the virus to individuals who may not be so fortunate. Despite this important, poorly understood population of asymptomatic individuals, the scarcity of reagents and the testing backlog in overworked diagnostic labs currently limits testing to symptomatic individuals. According to CDC guidelines, only hospitalized patients (Priority 1) and healthcare workers (Priority 3) are tested if asymptomatic [5]. With calls for the economy to reopen, implementation of robust testing could reduce the potential risk for a resurgent outbreak [6]. Large-scale testing programs can be (and have been) instrumental in identifying asymptomatic and presymptomatic carriers, yet this approach comes down to capacity: who will perform these tests and how will they do it? In a time of social media, crowdsourcing, citizen scientists and resource pooling, one invaluable group remarkably remains overlooked: the nonmedical academic scientist.Early in the pandemic, efforts at universities in California [7] and Washington [8] proved the utility of research labs performing large, wide-scale testing in thei...

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