Testing

From the Bruin: UCLA is offering a mobile COVID-19 testing site for students, staff and faculty via a bus that travels to off-campus locations. The program, which was a collaborative effort between the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center and the UCLA Events and Transportation, recast a spare BruinBus into a mobile testing bus that parks at locations where students live, said John Bollard, the interim co-executive director of Student Health Services.

The mobile testing bus parks at six different off-campus locations Monday through Thursday in the daytime, during which members of the UCLA community can go to self-administer a nasal swab test.

On Wednesday, the bus parked at the entrance of Wilshire Center beginning at 8:30 a.m. Two health care workers oversaw self-tests on either side of the bus. Those being tested were asked to pull down their masks just enough to cover their mouths while rotating the swab in their nostrils.

The Ashe Center also provides free testing at three locations on campus – Covel Commons, John Wooden Center and Switzer Plaza.

Bollard said the primary purpose of the bus is to make testing more accessible for students who live off-campus. “We didn’t want to encourage people to come into a closed campus to get testing, so we wanted to figure out a way to take testing to them,” Bollard said. “The goal is to remove as many obstacles (to testing) as possible.” According to Bollard, around 150 people visit the mobile testing site each day.

Bollard said that the program was designed to target students who live in university-owned housing and are required by UCLA to get tested every five to nine days. UCLA Events and Transportation used a heat map that determined where large groups of students live, Bollard added...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2020/11/20/ucla-launches-covid-19-mobile-testing-program-for-local-bruin-community