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THE DAILY ILLINI

MONDAY October 19, 2020

The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871

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Vol. 150 Issue 17

New Early Voting Locations 'A tall order': UI

reveals COVID-19 testing process

Church of the Living God 312 East Bradley Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820 Parkland College, Student Life Center 2400 W Bradley, Champaign, IL 61821

STAFF WRITER

Illini Union 1401 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801

Champaign Springfield Avenue

Leonhard Recreation Center 2307 Sangamon Drive, Champaign, IL 61821

Urbana

University YMCA 1001 S Wright St, Champaign, IL 61821

Activities and Recreation 201 East Peabody Drive, Champaign, IL 61820

Meadowbrook Community Church 1902 South Duncan Road, Champaign, IL 61822

CASSIDY BRANDT THE DAILY ILLINI

Weekly new case count hits semester low BY ETHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR

Last week was the University of Illinois’ best week in controlling the spread of COVID-19, recording fewer than 100 new cases for the first time since the summer. In all, during the week that ended on Friday, 85 people on campus tested positive for COVID-19 for the first time, with another 54,000 tests administered during that time period. Since classes began, 2,400 students, faculty and staff have tested positive for the virus on campus. The bulk of this came in the second week of classes, when nearly 900 new people tested positive within a one-week span. The University then entered a two-week lock-

down, and the testing protocol underwent several changes. Graduate students, faculty and staff were only 1000 required to test once a week, and undergraduate students in high-risk areas were asked to test three times a 800 week. For the five weeks afterward, the University found 600 a steady load of around 200 new cases per week, which was lowered from the lock- 400 down, but not the steady decrease campus officials hoped for. “The numbers have not 200 come down as much as we would like,” said Rebecca Smith, epidemiologist and 0 co-leader of the SHIELD Target team.

Campus sees decrease in new cases since August

85 new cases

Aug. 15-21

Aug. Aug. 29 Sept. 22-28 -Sept. 4 5-11

Sept. 12-18

Sept. Sept. 26 19-25 - Oct. 2

Oct. 3-9

Oct. 10-16

Source: Illinois SHIELD Team

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BRIAN NGUYEN THE DAILY ILLINI

Repurposed ice arena leaves ice sports dry The lobby of the Ice Arena is currently being used as a COVID-19 testing site, and the ice of the rink has been melted down since the start of the summer. Teams have developed different plans for the year, including off-ice practice schedules or practices at alternative locations. University-affiliated ice teams and clubs met on Oct. 12 to discuss different options for their seasons and how to make the most out of the circumstances. Each team has its own plans. Men’s hockey will have a delayed start in January. In the meantime, the team is looking at surrounding rinks to schedule tryouts and practices. Meeker said the team and other ice clubs are communicating with the Office of Registered Student Organizations to come up with a safe protocol to travel back

and forth from off-campus rinks. The closure of the UniverWhen Jessica Homan, sity Ice Arena due to COVjunior in LAS and president ID-19 safety concerns at the of IllinoiSkating, found out start of the semester left the University rink would be many ice teams and clubs, closed, her team’s executive including four Universityboard had to make drastic affiliated teams, without a changes. primary facility to practice “(Synchronized skating) at, prompting many to come focuses solely on being able up with alternative solutions to ice skate and using a rink to their seasons. facility, so we had to think Sports affected by the clocreatively,” she said. sure include the University Their current practices men’s and women’s hockconsist of twice-a-week offey clubs, the synchronized ice conditioning and a lot of skating club team and the activities to get to know the regional speed skating club. team members, especially “Obviously we were pretwith the addition of several ty bummed out ... but we’re freshman players this year, very understanding of the she said. circumstances,” said Zach Homan also learned about Meeker, senior in LAS and other collegiate teams going president of the Illinois to different rinks, prompting men’s D2 club hockey team. her and the executive board “So it’s tough to be disapto look into surrounding pointed, and financially, we locations that were open. understand where they’re The synchronized skatcoming from.” ing team began practicing at Bloomington Ice Center, an hour drive from the C-U area, on Friday. It plans to be there every Sunday for practices. Champaign Regional Speedskating, a recreational club that normally rents out the University Ice Arena, began practicing at Bloomington Ice Center in early October. It is having biweekly practices on Saturdays. “They’ve been very accommodating to fit us in and allow us to use their facility,” said Randy Sears, president of the speedskating club. The club has 26 members, RYAN ASH THE DAILY ILLINI all of whom are participatThe entrance to the University of Illinois Ice Arena rests closed ing this year. The relocation on Saturday morning. University COVID-19 testing is now being has not created any serious conducted inside the building. issues. BY VIVIAN LA STAFF WRITER

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eight to 10 (priority sample batches) and then an addiEvery hour, vans marked tional 10 to 15 batches,” she “Test Delivery Vehicle” criss- said. cross the campus, collecting From there, the samples their cargo — boxes of COV- are put directly into hot ID-19 test samples — from water baths, where they are the University’s 14 testing heated for 30 minutes at 95 sites. From there, they speed degrees celsius in order to off toward the south of cam- deactivate any virus that pus, where the University’s might be present. Then they Veterinary Medicine Basic are cooled in ice water for Sciences Building is tucked another 10 minutes. away. Afterward, the samples From the exterior, it are then taken by the batch doesn’t really look that spe- into plating rooms, where, cial, just another gray, con- under a biosafety cabinet, lab crete building on a universi- technicians manually pipette ty campus filled with many 100 microliters of saliva from similarly brutalist struc- each sample into four 95-well tures. Yet it is here where PCR plates containing a bufevery saliva sample collect- fer solution. There are actued by the University will end ally 96 wells in each plate, but its journey, here in the hands one well is reserved for a conof a lab technician at the Uni- trol sample. versity’s Veterinary Diagnos“We’ve had some people tic Lab, or the VDL. plate up to 20-some plates Originally designed to per shift," said Evette Vlach, handle diagnostic testing for a Veterinary Research Speanimals, the VDL has recent- cialist at the VDL. "That’s a ly shifted its focus toward lot of samples if each plate conducting COVID-19 tests has 95 samples. That can get using a method developed at hard on your hand, too.” the University that involves After that, the 95-well testing saliva samples via plates are taken to a lab robot real-time polymerase chain that automatically pipettes reaction, or PCR. the saliva-buffer solution While the VDL still con- from the 95-well plate into ducts animal diagnostic test- a higher capacity, 380-well ing for its clients, a section plate — in reality, 384 wells — of the lab containing space has the chemibeen set “It got to the point where cal reagents aside and necessary to reconfigfacilitate the you could hardly move, ured for rea l-time process- because so (many samples PCR used to ing COVfor the were) coming in, and we test I D - 1 9 presence of t e s t s . didn’t have the people to COVID-19. Tow a rd The plate is the end of then sealed process it fast enough.” the hallin plastic way and and ready EVETTE VLACH VETERINARY RESEARCH SPECIALIST past a set to be tested. of recently T h i s installed sealed plate glass doors, lab techni- is taken to a corner room cians — both veteran VDL containing six QuantStudio staff and newly hired “visit- real-time PCR machines. ing research specialists” — The sealed plate is insertwork around the clock label- ed into one of the machines, ing, scanning, pipetting and which then outputs the test testing roughly 10,000 saliva results that are analyzed by samples a day for COVID-19. lab technicians. “That’s quite a tall order The lab also maintains a for any diagnostics lab to do,” dedicawted PCR machine said Dr. Timothy Fan, a mem- used for retesting. Dr. Leyi ber of the SHIELD team and Wang, professor in Veteriprofessor in Veterinary Med- nary Medicine and virologist icine who works at the VDL. who oversees the processing of COVID-19 tests at the UniThe Testing Process versity, stated the VDL’s testUpon delivery, the sam- ing procedure calls for any ples, which arrive in racks of samples that initially test 95, are taken to into a pro- positive to be tested a second cessing room where racks of time for confirmation. saliva samples are stacked “We want to be sure that on a table in the center of we can get (the positive the room, forming a vener- result) duplicated before we able wall of plastic and sali- tell someone they tested posva towering roughly half a itive,” Vlach said. meter above the three or four lab technicians work- Bumps in the Road ing meticulously below. Despite being originally The arriving samples are designed to process about split into batches of 380 sam- 10,000 COVID-19 samples ples, or four racks. Lab tech- per day, during the first few nicians then individually weeks of widespread testlabel the sample tubes from ing at the University, the one to 380 with a marker and VDL was receiving upwards scan their barcode stickers of 18,500 samples per day, into an Excel spreadsheet. which significantly strained Brianna Salgado, a techni- the lab’s infrastructure and cian at the lab, said she typi- staff. cally handles around 18-25 “We did it,” Vlach said. “It batches per day. just wasn’t in the fashion we “Sometimes we get around SEE TESTING PROCESS | 3A BY WILLIE CUI

Crossword

“We love the Big Pond and look forward to the reopening of our home arena,” Sears said. “We also understand the situation and will continue our season alternatively until that can happen.” COVID-19 safety protocols have been followed throughout all the logistics of relocating practices, from moving equipment, transporting players and within the rink itself. Meeker said Bloomington Ice Rink and Kankakee Ice Valley Center are viable options for club hockey’s future practices. He said the rinks generally have very safe pandemic regulations and protocols. “Everyone has to dress outside of the rink,” he said. “(We have to stay) more than six feet apart in the parking lot. When you go into the rink, you can put your skates on, but you have to stay far away from people ... The rinks are doing everything they can.” The decision to close the rink for the rest of 2020 was announced prior to the start of the school year. It was made at the end of July, shortly after J.B. Pritzker released the state’s All Sports Policy where risk levels and recommended guidelines for specific sports were stated. Hockey is listed as a highrisk sport. Jessica Salmi, senior in Engineering and president of Illini Women’s Hockey Club, said she took over the executive role in the middle of the pandemic and

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