Okay, good afternoon, everyone. Happy Monday afternoon. We'll go ahead and get started here. Let me share my screen. Here we go. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Charlie Reardon, vice president for research, scholarship and innovation here at UD. Hope you're all doing well as we enter, I guess the third week of the fall semester. So a number of updates for the research community and beyond. And I think we'll just go ahead and get right into it. The usual logistics apply, namely that the session is recorded for posting later online. So those can, can't join us live, can review the posting as well as the video recording as well as the PowerPoint slides. And then as your questions arise, please use the chat function and we get near the end of the formal presentation. Tracy Bryant, the senior director for research communications, will be curating all of the questions that come in and we'll go through those efficiently this afternoon. I hope. So. Couple of things to be reminded of. Campus wide events. Been preparing for this announcement for several weeks now, later this week, Holden Thorp, the Editor in Chief of Science family of journals, will be the Jefferson lecture. Still time to register for the jefferson lecture, which is this Wednesday at 330, can also submit questions, those of you that have been following along Science Magazine particular Holton editorials. We'll see that he's been very engaged and I would, I would submit very clear in his thinking and outspoken in his reflections on how the current administration is addressing science and facts. So I encourage you, if you haven't, you may want to take a look at is editorial that came out in Science on last Friday, which was rather pointed directed towards some activities out of the current administration, as I said. So I'm sure that'll be a topic among many that will come up during Holden presentation of scientific publishing in the age of covert 19. Also on Wednesday. So that, so the jefferson lecture is early afternoon 130 to three. And then from four to five. There is a racial justice through collaborative program of projects speaker series for the academic year, starting this wednesday, there's a panel session moderator, As you can see here by Elson Parker and lynette over B, who've taken on the mantle of the co-chairs of the UD anti-racism initiative for excellent speakers, moderate panelists from the University of Delaware. And this program is supported by a number of units at UD, quite a large number, in fact, so many that I wrote them down and make sure I wouldn't leave anyone off. So I including the community engagement initiatives, uh, biden school, institute for public administration, office of diversity and inclusion, the Faculty Senate, the African heritage caucus, and the UD anti-racism initiative, as I mentioned. This is the first in a series of speaker events throughout the academic year. And again on the bottom of this slide is a link you can find two to register for the program on September 16th, two days from now. Again, coming in early October, John McKnight and the registration is now open for this symposium that Professor Mick not is leading the virtual symposium on computational social science for an inclusive society. So I encourage you to, to register and participated in many of these activities while we can't be together physically, it's great to see that the richness of intellectual engagement on campus certainly continues unabated here at UT as we had well into the fall semester. Some covert related updates as we've been doing pretty regularly since since March. And these town halls say to Delaware continues and in face to their most recent updates on Friday, indicated that they're seeing a slight uptick in the number of new daily covert cases, also, hospitalizations and of course, very tragically and up tick in the number of deaths within the state. If you look at the data a little bit more granularly, what we find is that new positive cases statewide or a relatively flat, as you can see by the plot on the left. And there's a perhaps gentle but clear uptick in the percentage of positive cases in the state. So for the last number, three or four, day four, looks like four to five days of data. The rate has been over 5%, which is certainly a number that the state and all states pay attention to when we really need to continue to reverse that trend. And we'd like to see the positivity rate not only below 5% statewide, but much below 5% times the capacity within within the hospital's current hospitalizations. Slight uptick again, relatively flat. Importantly that the current hospitalization overall numbers below our capacity, which is which is an encouraging sign. And then the new hospital admissions either confirmed or suspected to be covert 19 related. I continue to to decrease. So again, important positive signs but their counter balanced, if you will, by the incidence of a covert new infections across the state, which is headed upward just slightly over the last few days or so. Reminder, since August tenth, We've been in phase three of research reactivation. We remain in phase three. Things continue to be going relatively strongly in terms of getting folks back into on-campus and field based research as the semester started. I know there are a number of undergraduates, for example, that are coming back and engaging. And for example, senior. Projects and getting back into lab and field-based work, consistent with our expectations and certainly consistent with our institutional priorities and values which really celebrate the undergraduate research as being one of the hallmarks of a, of a Udi experience. So we're, we're thankful that we can see more undergraduates in those lab settings and really, and research settings and all sorts of environments. And thanks to the faculty and staff for really supporting those those efforts. If things continue to go wow, well, will continue to remain in phase three for the foreseeable future. Just a quick reminder of the multi-prong strategy that we've talked about over the past couple of months that really work hand-in-glove to keep our campus safety safe. During this time of of covert things up, we become very familiar with both hearing about in the news and hopefully hearing about repeatedly across campus. I want to remind you of a little bit more data to share a couple of minutes that we have expected all individuals coming to campus in the fall to participate in prayer. Rival diagnostic testing, which is effectively which has gone very well and is effectively complete at this time, the daily health screens, covert testing on campus and contact tracing, all parts of a multi-pronged approach to mitigate the spread of COBIT within our community. As you, as you do come to campus, remember the daily health screens are, are operative and so on the doors of all the buildings on campus, you will see signs such as the one indicated on this slide, both reminding you to wear face coverings and also providing, as a reminder the URL and a QR code. If you happen to have a smart device, It's time to access the daily Qualtrax health screening questionnaire. Everyone on the campus community, that is all students and all faculty and staff are receiving on a daily basis, an email reminder to complete the daily health screen. Those daily health screens need only be completed on the days in which you're coming to campus. Or if you're already living in our residence halls, complete those on a daily basis to ensure that we have a good sense of the health and well-being of our campus community through those health screening responses. We continue as a campus too to complete surveillance testing. So just as a reminder, surveillance testing is designed for those that are asymptomatic. If you do have symptoms, you're not eligible for this for the surveillance testing, but you're strongly encouraged to follow up as a student with either Student Health Services or an employee with your healthcare provider. If you are experiencing symptoms that could be related to covert, to follow up with those health care providers. So you can get the best guidance, which may well include securing a covert test. As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, we are in a position now with their in-house capability of conducting at least 1000. Surveillance tests per week, 500 on Mondays and 500 on Wednesdays, individuals, but will be receiving emails, invitations to participate in the surveillance testing. We can scale up beyond 1000 per week, but we're starting out and testing our internal systems to ensure that we can support that level of surveillance testing. And so far so good as we currently stand here today. Just to reiterate again, a message from a variety of settings in the last couple of weeks. The way we're doing surveillance testing a Udi currently is that these tests are unofficial. So you're if you receive a positive test result falling invitation, and completing of this saliva based test, your presumptive positive. And those are being followed up very quickly with an FDA approved tests. But I'm happy to report and share with you with more information following up certainly later this week, but through collaboration between student health services, the university and the state of Delaware, the state of Delaware Division of Public Health will be accepting the University of Delaware surveillance testing as a firm positive so an approved tests. So that means the need for the follow-up test will no longer be a requirement. And so our surveillance testing will serve as as affirmative positive tests for those in the community. So positive development there, sorry, I use the term positive too frequently. Very, very productive development there on couple of other resources on our UD coronavirus website to make you aware of. First is indicated on the left here now. So if you go to the testing, screening and tracing website within the coronavirus constellation of pages on the UD homepage, if you will. We do have a link now through Cass login. If you've tested positive, you can upload that information directly for the university. And so anyone who's been on campus, student, faculty, and staff and has a positive test result. And we encourage you to use the coffee contact form to report that positive result. In many cases, particularly among our students who likely have that positive test result because they were tested at Student Health Services. We may already be aware, but there's no harm. And in ensuring that we have that information by going into the portal and uploading that confirmation. That information is really important for us to receive as a campus community because it can help us begin the process. Not only making sure that you have the healthcare that you need to, to stay safe and hopefully recuperate very quickly from your exposure an HIV positive test. But also to start the process of contact tracing to try to mitigate the spread. That's particularly true for, for employees and students who are getting tests off-campus use that contact, positive contact form. And then on the right hand side of the slide is a is a PDF screenshot, if you will, of some guidance to. Our campus community in terms of if you've been potentially exposed to someone who's tested positive, what are your immediate steps? Goes through things like what are the depth, what are the definitions even of quarantining versus isolating? What do you need to do once you've been identified with a positive test? In terms of isolation in mind, is that isolation period and questions have come up. Do I need a negative covert tests to come back to work to campus? The simple answer to that is, is now you don't need a follow-up called the test turning negative to come back to campus. But you do need to complete your isolation period, ensure it's been at least ten days. Since your symptoms began, at least 24 hours without a fever. And that's without using fever. Reducing medication and your other covert symptoms are improving. So additional guidances is available there as well. In terms of contact tracing, again, contact tracing is a very important part of the mitigation of the, of the spread. We're particularly interested healthcare providers and epidemiologists are interested in anyone who's been in contact with someone who has a positive test result or a presumptive positive contact is defined as within six feet for a period of 15 minutes or longer. The state of Delaware division of public health is supporting with the support of UD, is doing contact tracing with the number of cases we've had on campus thus far. We've been very successful in the contact tracing. I think that has a lot to do with the our ability again, to mitigate the spread of that and to limit the number of additional positive covert cases on campus later this week. And you'll be hearing about this both from the state of Delaware and from the University of Delaware. But later this week, the state is going to be announcing and launching a app for smartphones and smart devices that is bluetooth based, that is a statewide app that's going to support contact tracing. And so you'll hear a lot more about that app as is launched later this week and they'll be Communications coming out. But certainly, we'll describe that, the value of that app to our campus community and why one would want to download the app, both to keep yourself safe and those with whom we become in contact across, across campus and across the community. And the information will also share all of the privacy considerations that have been under advisement as that app is being develop. Similar apps are being developed in other states in the region as well as across the country. So you'll be hearing more about that, that app. But I do think it's going to be an important tool in our arsenal. Cross campus thought I'd just share with you before we get into the Q and a. If a few data points where we sit, today is a fall semester starts some of this you may have heard about in, in different forums across campus, but I thought I'd gather at all and in the research town hall today. So the fall semester of our undergraduate course sections being offered, 91% are being delivered. Online at the graduate level, 88% Of course sections are being delivered online. So when you hear the number 90% of UD classes or online this fall, that's where those numbers come from. Within the graduate and undergraduate populations, there's a difference, as you can see on the slide, in the percentage of those online courses which are delivered asynchronously versus synchronously. So simply put, synchronous online courses are delivered by the T at a scheduled time, whereas the asynchronous or more of a flipped classroom, if you will, where the course content delivery, at least part of it, is delivered on the web. And students can participate in that delivery at anytime that they so choose. And as you can appreciate with a large number of our graduate students being an International and the challenges that they've experienced being able to get into this country and onto our campus. That helps explain, I think, why with the many time zones across the globe, of course wide, nearly 50% of our graduate classes are offered an asynchronous format. In terms of d densification of campus. You've heard that term a lot. And what that really is played out too, in terms of the residence hall occupancy is rather dramatic as you can see on the slide. So in fall last year we had an occupancy little bit over a 100%. Whereas fall this year, our residence hall occupancy is 18%. So there are really three different locations. The university courtyard apartments with UD, which UD took over last year. North Campus, layered campus, and one Eastern are the three primary locations where students are being housed on campus. And all of those students are in setting such that they all have their own rooms and they either have a single occupancy bath, bathroom or they're sharing their restroom with one other individual. So you can imagine those structures and setups are really very helpful in terms of, again, potentially mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. In terms of the daily health screens, which give us a snapshot of individuals that are coming to campus every day. Looking at last week's data, we averaged about 6 thousand per day. And up those Completed the survey, about 98% were cleared to come to campus. And they broke down roughly 50% students. As you can see here, 51% students, 46% employees, and the balance on visitors coming to campus. So give you a sense of the density we have of individuals on campus on any given day. Thank many also now we've launched in the last ten days or two weeks, I guess now, the UD covert dashboard, which has data which will be added to that dashboard each day. I'm here shows a summary of the positive cases we had at the university. The first case on March 11th through August 30th, the pre-arrival testing, which I referenced earlier, you can see with more than 4 thousand students providing pre-arrival test results and nearly 3700 faculty in those two populations, we had 525 coded positive test, respectively. Those who reported positive tests remained an isolation in their home locations and told they were cleared to come to campus. And now they're on campus engaging in their academic and research activities. Here's the date, I think that's, that's most interesting and most relevant to many of us. So this is a snapshot, a screenshot of the the data will be updated for incidents over the weekend and so today, Monday, but you can see the last seven days of the number of positive cases at the university, both broken down by students and by employees. And so you can see that so far so good in terms of our ability to manage the number of cases. And this data is going to be updated on a, on a daily basis each weekday. So you'll be able to go to the COBIT 19 UD dashboard to see the number of the number of positive cases among our student and employee populations. So with that, I'll close the formal presentation and turn it over to Tracy Bryant, who, as I mentioned, has been paying attention to the chat and seeing what questions have been coming in as I've been talking. So Tracy over to you. Hey there Charlie. Good afternoon, everyone. A couple of questions have come in. One of them is whether there will be another star Campus Testing event or a flu shot event there. So in terms of staar testing events, those were run by the state as folks now, the state has migrated now to a number of fixed locations that there'll be running there, state-wide testing events. So you can go to the the state of Delaware covert website to find out where those daily testing events are taking place up and down the state, again, on campus. On Mondays, Wednesdays will be conducting daily well, twice a week, not daily, twice a week, surveillance tests and certainly anyone who has symptoms should follow up with your healthcare provider, student health services, or again, your health care provider to get those symptoms addressed. While Next question, should we report the positive test results of participants using the online form if they tell us that they test, that said after research visits. So the online form is for self-reporting only. And so the way that that so so one of the reasons I mentioned that ij, as as a research investigator, you would not have the ability with that form to report others who have tested positive. So what you should do is if you're aware of someone who has come to campus and then subsequently tested. Positive on that. Information should be shared just as quickly and as soon as you receive it. With student health services. And student health services will provide you and the individual that tested positive with with additional guidance, follow-up guidance consistent with understanding the risk of exposure. Well, I know you addressed this in part, Charlie, but the question is how many people are currently working or studying ON campus? If we're doing a 1000 tests per week, what percentage of the number is being tested each week? This person asks, so good, good question we're doing and surveillance, as I said, we're doing about a thousand a week. And based on the Qualtrax, a survey for last week, we were averaging about 6 thousand individuals coming to campus each day. So we're 16 on a weekly basis. Question here are the number of students cases concerning Do we know the off campus versus ON campus students break down? We certainly Student Health Services knows the breakdown. And student health services of course, knows the individuals that are testing positive and where they are. We do have a fair bit and this is additional data that will be made available on the covert dashboard. And in the coming weeks, we have plan for the fall semester for students. In terms of on-campus isolation and quarantine space, we're using very little of that space at this time. So that's a positive indicator because it suggests that we have capacity to manage more positive cases should they materialize. So I know that on a daily basis, Dr. Tim Dowling, Director of Student Health Services, is ask that question. Are you concerned by these numbers? So at this point, so far so good. And the numbers are certainly numbers that we can manage very safely on campus with the infrastructure that we have. But many of the cases I can share with you of the students that are positive are students that are residing off-campus. I don't have the specific numbers available to share off-campus versus on campus. And I guess the last point I would make is, of course is a reminder once you test positive when you are asked to secluded residence or on campus, that term is isolation. If you've been in contact with someone as positive, but you net yet have not developed symptoms or have a positive test. You're asked to be in quarantine. So those are all the individuals that we follow up with because through contact tracing, we know there has been an exposure. So Student Health Services is doing a great job as well. Following up with those individuals who are in quarantine because of potential positive. And those are some of the individuals that are being specifically invited to surveillance testing because they're asymptomatic, but they are at higher risk because of potential exposure. So, so far so good. Thank you, Charlie, Another question. Is there a possibility of another university shutdown and 100% of online classes. Positivity rates keep climbing. And how would that decision BY mould? Yeah, that's always an important question. We've talked about it before. I think what's relevant here is we've learned a lot. There's still a lot we certainly don't know about covert, but we've certainly learned a lot about covert its transmission and how we can protect ourselves and one another since March. And the reason I mention that is as you know, very quickly in March we shut down the entire campus. It's not likely that we would end up shutting down the entire campus. Again. I mean, you can never take anything, certainly off the table, but with our ability to monitor surveillance test, we feel like we will we will literally have a daily understanding of the prevalence of Coven and in our community. So that doesn't mean that we wouldn't find ourselves perhaps going back and phases from research activity. So if we had hot spots within the research community, we've already, we've always plan for perhaps going from phase three to phase two, which would DIE densify the research spaces. If there were to be additional cases in the residence halls, that could we could imagine having to do more isolation and a given residence hall or more ice quarantine in a given residence hall. Again, more already 90% of our course is delivered online. I'd be surprised if we found ourselves in a position where we had to go to a 100% online. So we're going to be in a position based on a lot more information, lot more understanding, some uncertainty of, of really taking a much more targeted approach too. Making decisions that are really going to impact the, the spread of the disease. In question here, that can we bring in new undergrad students into our lab? Now specifically those who are under the Embry Summer Scholars program, they were delayed a bit from the summer program. Was specifically with abide. I'd have to know if the summer students or are eligible and have funding in the fall, perhaps that's assumed in the in the question. We do continue to focus on both experienced undergraduates to those that can work relatively independently, as well as those perhaps it have less experience. But their, and their undergraduate opportunity back on campus which is integral to their degree completion. So you think about senior thesis and the like. So I think beyond that, general guidance, if there are specific questions, what I encourage individuals to do is to talk to their department chair and consider applying, having those applying on behalf of those undergraduate students for access through the research phase three activation process. There's another question here about undergraduate students. It wants to know why these students are allowed inside the early learning center to interact with kids when in their opinion, that seems to be in contrast to the CDC guidelines. I don't think it's so good question. The early learning center and other of our programs have been thoroughly reviewed and vetted by the President's health advisory committee, which includes individuals on campus and in some cases beyond campus, who are health care experts. I can tell you that the guidelines for daycare is in early learning centers are robust. They do, perhaps on the surface appear a little bit different than what, what, what one might find in a, in a research laboratory setting. But I'm confident that those programs have been well reviewed, well vetted. They're applying all of the rigorous guidance that's expected for daycare settings, early learning settings. With the clear understanding that, that that the young children in those settings have different expectations. Certainly with respect to math, mask wearing and physical distancing than, than we adults do. The last point I would add is that the, the undergraduate students in those settings are working towards their degree completion as well. And we want to be able to support their work in a safe environment. Okay. Thank You. Are the invitations to participate in the weekly surveillance testing a voluntary or mandatory invitation? They are a voluntary, yet strongly encouraged. So if you receive an invitation, there's some specific worthy night understand in the invitations to the students to really encouraging them. If It's not true of all invitees that you're at higher risk based on exposure. But for many it is. So hopefully mandatory is not required and people will take advantage of this opportunity to assess their own health. And in doing so, not only keep themselves healthy, keep those that they're living with and other members of the campus community healthy. Okay, there's a very specific question about the daily health screen. When research participants fill that out, what should they do if they don't have an email address? They check regularly. Should that lab have them enter a lab email address, for example. So, well, if they enter lab email address, so the way the, the Qualtrics is set up, you can only have one email address per, per person. What we've been directing research participants to do up to this point will continue, is they can complete those surveys by hand if they well, are on paper and just make sure is the PI of that study that you've got documentation, both verbal confirmation and written confirmation, that the participants have completed the survey, but they don't need to upload it to Qualtrax if they don't have an email address. There's still some lingering concerns about undergraduate research and the eligibility of that for students. This person says about many than juniors had just started undergrad research and early 2020. And they've lost most of the spring or the summer and now two weeks to the Fall. And many seniors have thus have little research experience. Is there a plan to allow inexperienced senior undergrad, so ON campus to conduct research? Right. So right now if if they are see regardless of, of year, senior, junior, et cetera, if a student has, for example, registered for research credit as part of their curriculum, department for 68 research, for example, then regardless of their experience, they are eligible, but we would ask that they work very closely with their advisor to ensure that there's excellent and strong training in terms of pre-arrival training, but day-to-day training and and robust conversations and frequent conversations about pp that's appropriate for the setting and strong oversight of their efforts. So certainly if it's part of their academic program, we want to support undergraduate researchers WHO Thank you. This person mentions just Sass when we'll surveillance testing be scaled out as you mentioned it, maybe while we're monitoring as we've scaled up on and add new as needed basis. So it's not clear when that will be needed. Knock on wood, it would never be needed and we wouldn't have to scale up, but we are in a position that we can scale up as necessary. Call this person has a question relating to the health screening and says, Is there a way to continue to receive text messages as part of UD alert but not get the text reminder at 05:00 AM. The email is sufficient for the check and reminder. Yeah. So when you the next time you go into the survey, one of the early questions is, do you want to enter in your cell phone number? And so there's an open text box where you would put your cell phone number and some language, the details of which I don't remember off the top of my head above it that includes a checkbox that says that you would like to receive SMS. So the next time you go into complete the survey, if you uncheck that box and and remove your cell phone number, then you will stop receiving text messages which candidly come early in the morning, right? Literally write an early. And some, some folks are at work even before those messages arrive. For I think we've covered all the questions that have come so far. Okay. Well well, one I just wanted to go back to I think it might have even been the very first question. I didn't completely answer it and that had to do with the flu shot. Certainly all guidance that we're hearing from CDC, the Delaware division of public health and health care professionals on campus, is that so carrying a flu shot this fall is going to be as important as any year. So you're certainly encouraged to to get a flu shot this year. So certainly employees again, follow up with your healthcare providers. Are there available certainly at local pharmacies, et cetera. And students should follow up with student health services, but certainly a flu shots highly recommended this year among any years. For sure, there is one more question, Charlie, will voluntary testing be made available on campus? So we do have voluntary testing, surveillance test seen as as I mentioned, that's by invitation. There is some conversation currently about how much of that would be by invitation and how that how much of that would be voluntary in terms of individuals signing up. So if you weren't selected for the voluntary, for example, and you wanted to be tested. So I think those those are ongoing conversations and I think as there's clarity and decisions are being made as to how that will be rolled out. That information will be shared across campus. Well, thank you, Charlie. Ok. I hope we got him all. Good. Sounds great. Thanks, Tracy, for your help is always thanks everyone for for joining us. We'll get together again in two weeks. But before that, certainly a lot of programming we talked about at the beginning of the hour, the jefferson lecture and many other programs. So take advantage of those opportunities and enjoy the balance of the week. Take care everybody.
COVID-19 TownHall September 14, 2020
From David Barczak September 14, 2020
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A town hall hosted on September 14, 2020, provides important updates for the UD research community, from campus operations to grants administration, and ways you can help our local community at this time.
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