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KU offers free testing, requires results before students return

By Madison Parry

As the Thanksgiving holiday closes in, the University of Kansas has offered its students and faculty free COVID-19 testing. The university said it will send all students home with a saliva test kit and that each will be required to take the test before returning to campus in January.

A quickly approaching holiday season and a regional rise in COVID-19 cases have prompted the University of Kansas to take extra steps for students leaving campus who will be making a return in the spring.

This Tuesday concludes classes before many return home for Thanksgiving break. Already, many students are only attending classes virtually compared to a small portion that have continued some courses in person.

Nonetheless, KU is offering all students and staff free COVID-19 testing in an attempt to mitigate the spread as many prepare to leave campus until 2021.

“We’re providing testing for individuals who are leaving our campus going into the Thanksgiving break, just to make sure that if anybody wants something before they go home, we have available testing for them,” said Andrew Foster, KU’s emergency management coordinator.

While most testing through the university has concluded, students leaving for the holiday break are also being sent home with a COVID-19 saliva test kit.

Before making a return to campus, students will be required to take the test and provide results to the university prior to the start of the spring semester in January.