June 1, 2023

Husky Coronavirus Testing ending June 16th (Message to study participants)

This message was sent to participants in the Husky Coronavirus Testing voluntary research study.

The UW’s Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases is in the process of changing the University’s COVID-19 prevention policies and guidelines. Consistent with these changes, the Husky Coronavirus Testing study will be ending with the conclusion of this academic year and will not return in the fall. The last day of PCR testing will be Friday, June 16th, 2023. Participants will be able to pickup and drop-off PCR self-swab kits on Friday June 16th but as of June 17th all HCT locations will be closed permanently.

HCT initially grew out of a need for increased testing access at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and has grown and changed along the way, in partnership with the UW community. We appreciate you coming along with us on this journey. Over the last three years we have enrolled over 40,000 participants in our study, tested approximately 235,000 swabs for COVID-19, and approximately 2,391,000 daily attestation surveys were completed by study participants. Thus far, data from HCT has contributed to two published manuscripts and there is ongoing analysis of data from this study to inform scientific knowledge of rapid test accuracy, Long COVID in a university population, and vaccine effectiveness. Our research results are shown on the Chu Lab website and we will continue to add information about additional research manuscripts as they are published and available to the public. Thank you for your contribution to this work!

With this change we will also no longer be distributing rapid test kits from HCT locations around campus. The university will continue to distribute COVID-19 antigen test kits free of charge. For more information, please visit the UW Covid-19 Testing website or UW EH&S Covid-19 Prevention and Response website.

Thank you so much for your participation in the Husky Coronavirus Testing study!

Sincerely,
Husky Coronavirus Testing Study Team
Email: huskytest@uw.edu
Phone: 206-616-2414 (8 AM – 8 PM)