The University of Maine at Farmington reported its first case of COVID-19 on campus which was revealed through a round of asymptomatic testing. Pictured above is a COVID-19 saliva test that the university administered on September 4. Andrea Swiedom/Franklin Journal
FARMINGTON — In an email Sunday, Oct. 18, University of Maine at Farmington (UMF) President Edward Serna announced that a student living on campus tested positive for COVID-19.
“The individual has been contacted and is currently in isolation and their roommate has been moved into quarantine. Both students are receiving appropriate support at this time,” Serna said in the email.
This is the first reported case of COVID-19 on the UMF campus with previous cases coming from a remote learner and an adjunct faculty member, both of whom were never on campus during their infectious period.
Once UMF receives a positive test result, the finding is sent to the Maine Center for Disease Control (CDC) which conducts contact tracing. The CDC then works with UMF to contact individuals who came in contact with the student who contracted COVID-19.
UMF is currently in the University of Maine (UMaine) system’s Phase III COVID-19 screening strategy which consists of randomly testing students, staff and faculty in 10-day rounds.
“Each testing round will include 2,000 tests occurring over a period of approximately ten days. The final round of the asymptomatic testing is expected to conclude the week before the Thanksgiving-break transition to remote instruction,” the UMaine website explains.
Phase III of testing began September 14 and will continue until November 25 when all classes will transition to remote learning modalities for the remainder of the fall semester.
In Serna’s email, he stated that over 2,500 tests have been administered on the UMF campus alone since August 11.
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