Effective Wednesday morning at 4 a.m., Cal Poly San Luis Obispo put into effect sweeping rules and consequences for people who do not abide by the twice-weekly COVID-19 saliva test.
Students and members of the campus community are expected to take a test at either the Health Center or the Performing Arts Center twice a week.
According to the university, about 95% of students are compliant.
While the locations' hours of operations vary, students can make appointments online or if there are just a few people in line, they can drop in.
The university requires students to complete a daily health screen, as well as a survey when they test to determine any symptoms or exposure to COVID-19.
Students receive status updates on their university apps or an email to alert them to possible contact tracing or dorm-wide exposure or quarantine.
Now, students who do not abide by the rules will receive three warnings before having their campus privileges revoked.
This entails losing access to one's email account, Zoom classes, Canvas app, and other tools or portals Cal Poly provides.
The three warnings come once a day, so by the third day, a student will have gone six days without completing a test.
Upon taking a test, it can take between five minutes to an hour to reactivate access.
To resume access, students can also upload test results from a non-university testing site.
Many students say they understand the reasoning behind the mass testing operation but decried the bottlenecks that sometimes happen at testing sites and said the surveys they have to complete several times a week can be tedious.
However, the students we interviewed told us they rarely had a delay in booking an appointment.
The university advises students who need accommodations to go to the Disability Services Center.
