For In-Person College, Coronavirus Testing Will Be Key. But Is That Feasible?

The coronavirus test wasn't as bad as Celeste Torres imagined. Standing outside a dorm at the University of California, San Diego, Torres stuck a swab up a nostril, scanned a QR code, and went on with the day.

"The process itself was about five minutes," Torres says, "I did cry a little bit just because it's, I guess, a natural reaction."

Torres hadn't been exhibiting symptoms, and didn't end up testing positive. Rather, they are a data point, part of a mass testing effort at UC San Diego to make sure an in-person fall semester is possible. "We're not trying to test to see if we can detect an outbreak right now," explains Dr. Robert Schooley, a virologist and professor of medicine, who is helping lead the project. "We're trying to make sure that we can scale to be able to do that in the fall."

Getting colleges and universities going is the main goal for leaders across the country — and it will remain so over the next several months. The CDC released institutions this