GFA Administers Testing After Winter Break
Joseph Lublinsky ‘24
On Jan. 4, returning from winter break, all GFA students and faculty took part in on-campus PCR COVID-19 testing.
“To have three positive cases, relative to the statistics in Connecticut, is great,” GFA Head of School Bob Whelan said. “This most recent testing, we favored a PCR test simply because it’s such a high level of accuracy.”
Although this round of testing was PCR, just like the last one, it was done in a different “swish test” method, which was much more convenient for the GFA community compared to the “spit test.”
“This new swish test, the community found it to be more user-friendly,” Whelan said.
Although the first day of testing went as expected, an unexpected setback came up, as almost half of the community’s tests were lost. Many students and faculty returned the next day to receive a rapid antigen test. “Federal Express only got 475 of our almost 800 samples on time,” Whelan said. “what it did is it forced us to make a decision regarding the outstanding 300+ results […] within an hour we were able to get a rapid response test made available to the balance of the people in our community.”
GFA has also learned that using FedEx is not ideal for transporting test results to the lab, and for the next test, they already have a new plan in mind. “We are going to use couriers to Louisiana,” Jennifer Campbell, Chief Financial and Operations Officer said. “Two drivers, all night, to make sure they get there.” This plan will make the shipping process much more efficient and predictable.
“Inevitably there will be some things beyond our control […] we want to control the things that we can control,” Whelan said.
Due to the delay in shipping, GFA was forced to think quickly and come up with a new plan. Eventually, a new plan was organized, and the rest of the community, which had their tests lost, were at school the next day to be retested. “It was difficult scrambling to pull off the testing that afternoon, but what we were all so moved by was how responsive our families were,” Whelan said.” “Our team being outside - we had a dozen people standing in 35-degree weather for five hours - I love that.”
Another critical contribution to the second round of testing was Everpoint, the health company which the school is working with to perform the tests. “Our partnership with Everpoint really proved to be strong;” Campbell said, “We all learned the magnitude of the situation. Everpoint was really quick in their partnership with us to help us figure out plan B. So we’re grateful for their partnership.”
GFA’s test results turned out to be great, as only three members of the school tested positive, and these results largely have to do with the work inside the GFA community.
The fact of the matter is that everyone is hoping for this situation to be over soon enough, and the community has been consistently following guidelines to stop the spread.
“We’ve got a group who’s clearly adopted the behaviors that allow us to mitigate risk,” Whelan said, “a community that takes the nature of the virus very seriously. Our families want their kids to be at school, and kids want to be at school.”
Future testing scheduled will be after Presidents’ Day weekend, as well as after March break.
