See How We Are Carrying Out COVID-19 Tests

by Dateline Staff
September 22, 2020

First stop, before Moove-In: the COVID-19 testing kiosk in The Pavilion parking garage. Don’t let the name “kiosk” fool you; this testing site takes up a third of the first floor.

Chancellor Gary S. May inserts nasal sawb into vial. — The chancellor at the testing kiosk last week. (TC Clark/UC Davis)

Though the testing at this point is strictly for students who are moving into campus housing, the kiosk made an exception last week for Chancellor Gary S. May and two other administrators, Mary Croughan, provost and executive vice chancellor, and Kelly Ratliff, vice chancellor of Finance, Operations and Administration, so they could understand the process and see how things were going.

“Exceedingly well,” the chancellor reported Friday (Sept. 18) in his weekly letter to the campus community.

Two tests are being administered: saliva, for screening at the UC Davis Genome Center in a pilot testing project; and nasal swab.

The kiosk tested nearly 800 people last week, the bulk of them transfer students who were moving into the university’s new apartment complex, The Green at West Village. Moove-In at the residence halls is underway this week, Sept. 21-24, and the kiosk expects to test about 600 students per day.

Step by step

The photos below, by Alex Fisher-Wagner, multimedia specialist in Student Housing and Dining Services, follow Katherine Yanogacio as she undergoes testing last week. She graduated in June, as a human development major, and now she is welcoming new Aggies as an orientation team lead. She described the COVID-19 as “an appropriate step and precaution for the university to take as students come back to campus.”

Testing1 — Myoho Pulai assists Katherine at Station 1, scanning the QR code she received when she made her appointment. Pulai is a senior food service worker who has been redeployed to the testing kiosk.

Testing2 — The saliva: She uses a straw to fill about half a vial.

Testing3 — Working from behind a sheet of plastic for safety, Dana Heyer, a registered nurse in Student Health and Counseling Services, hands over a swab and a vial for self-administered nasal test and will observe Katherine as she does it.

The kiosk uses mid-turbinate nasal swabs, and tells students to insert them just under an inch into each nostril. The procedure is only mildly uncomfortable, said Cindy Schorzman, medical director, Student Health and Counseling Services, compared to nasopharyngeal swabs that go farther up the nose.

Katherine Yanogacio self-administers nasal swab test. — The nasal swab: With her reflection shown in the safety divider, Katherine swabs one nostril, then the other.

“It was better than OK as the nasal swab only goes about half an inch up your nose,” Katherine said. “The cotton swab for the nasal swab test was not as long as the ones I had seen before on social media. It tickled very slightly.”