USC paused saliva tests because a ’key lab staffer’ became sick

The University of South Carolina has postponed saliva tests for coronavirus, citing a staffing shortage.

Saliva tests, developed in part by USC’s College of Pharmacy, were seen by school officials as a “game changer” that could help USC respond more quickly to test students and respond to outbreaks. USC had been offering on-demand saliva testing for students whether or not they showed coronavirus symptoms.

“We have temporarily paused saliva testing because of a personnel shortage due to a key lab staffer becoming ill,” USC President Robert Caslen said in a statement. “The lab is unable to operate without this staffer’s presence.”

The statement did not say whether the ‘key lab staffer’ had coronavirus or another illness.

USC will still be offering nasal swab testing by appointment for symptomatic students through student health services, USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said in a test message.

A tweet from USC’s Healthy Carolina account encouraged those who need tests to seek them at DHEC-approved locations off-campus.

It’s unclear when testing will resume, but Stensland said the university is hoping to resume on-demand testing Tuesday.

The announcement came just a day after Caslen said the university has plenty of testing capacity for students, faculty and staff. USC’s COVID 19 dashboard reinforced that, saying campus testing was at the lowest possible alert level.

“It’s out intent to continue high testing because we want to find more positives...we want to find them, we want to take care of them and we want to get them back into the classroom,” Caslen said during a Wednesday virtual town hall.

Two weeks ago, USC began classes. Then, there were 46 active cases, according to USC’s website. As of Monday, there are 1,026 active cases. USC has taken steps to combat positive cases by testing, moving to suspend students and student organizations that violate coronavirus rules and quarantining 10 houses in Greek Village.

Part of the reason USC’s case numbers are high, USC officials said, is because the university is being aggressive in testing. As a result, Caslen said Wednesday that USC still has the capacity to respond to more positive cases.

“The last thing I want to do is take this university, shut it down and dump the problem on the city of Columbia,” Caslen said. “I prefer to work through this if I can.”

This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 12:01 PM.