Barnard’s COVID-19 Testing Program

Barnard has established a robust and independent COVID-19 surveillance testing program to help monitor and manage the health of our campus. Effective December 23, 2022, mandatory COVID-19 surveillance testing will be discontinued.

Although testing will no longer be required, optional asymptomatic (no symptoms and not sick) testing will be available at the testing site in Milbank Hall on a limited basis. Each community member will have three opportunities to test with Color during the Spring 2023 semester.

Students with symptoms of COVID-19 should consult Barnard’s Primary Care Health Service (PCHS) for evaluation and possible testing. If indicated, faculty and staff should be seen and tested off-campus and can consider non-Barnard locations for COVID-19 testing. 

Additionally, please take note of the following:

1. The negative testing requirement for building access will be eliminated effective 12/23. Nevertheless, swiped building access will remain active.
2. Positive test results, including those from at-home antigen tests, should be uploaded to CoVerified in order to notify our team and to receive instructions on the next steps.
   1. Those who test positive for COVID-19 are expected to adhere to isolation protocols as outlined here.'

More information about optional asymptomatic testing, the Color testing platform, and FAQs are available in the Barnard On-Campus COVID-19 Testing Information document. 

Contact phrt@barnard.edu if you have any questions.

Members of the Barnard community must download the CoVerified App, which Barnard community members can securely upload their positive COVID-19 test results and see the results of any tests taken at the Barnard Testing Site. More information about CoVerified can be found here. 

• Barnard provides all on-campus, optional asymptomatic testing at no cost to faculty, staff or students.
• Barnard’s testing protocols are built around polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which have been referred to as the “gold standard” of testing. On-campus tests use an anterior nasal collection, which uses a short, Q-tip-like swab to collect a sample just above the nostrils. Tests will be processed by the Clinical Research Sequencing Platform in partnership with the Broad Institute. The estimated turnaround time is approximately 48 hours from collection. 
• Individuals will be able to view their personal test results on CoVerified as soon as they are posted by the lab.
• The results of our community testing as aggregate information are available on the College’s COVID-19 Dashboard, including the number of tests weekly and the percentage of positive test results
• Additionally, all faculty, staff and students should update the College if they test positive for COVID-19 via a non-Barnard test at any point by uploading their test to CoVerified.