By Neil Doyle

NORMAL – Students who live in on-campus housing at Illinois State University will soon be required to get tested for COVID-19.

Since the start of the school year, testing has not been mandatory for students. Testing is available for any student at two on-campus sites, currently located in the Brown Ballroom in the Bone Student Center and the former fire station at 602 North Adelaide Street. Those with COVID symptoms are tested at student health services.

The school has the capacity to expand testing, according to ISU’s testing coordinator and professor of chemistry John Baur

“Expanding the university’s ability to test and requiring students to test has always been part of our testing plan,” said Baur. “It’s a good time to start mandatory testing because people who wouldn’t have gone otherwise will now be tested and we will get a more random idea where the positive cases may be.”

The university saw a large number of students get tested the first few weeks of the semester, but Baur said the has dropped off over the last two weeks.

As of Monday, ISU has reported 1,415 cases of COVID-19 as the rolling positivity rate has dropped to 3.9%.

Meanwhile, ISU officials said plans to put in place saliva-based testing developed by the University of Illinois are also moving forward. Saliva-based testing could start in the next eight weeks, according to Baur.

Neil Doyle can be reached at [email protected]