With the return of classes comes the return of many stressors for students. The fear of catching COVID-19 and not knowing is one the AU community faced this semester, as on-campus COVID test vending machines were out of service throughout the first two weeks of classes. 

 

     When Margo Flanagan, a junior in the School of Communication, began to feel sick during the first week of classes, she decided to test for COVID. Upon seeing the positive test results, she was anxious about what that would mean for her and her roommates. 

 

     Flanagan describes her 10-day quarantine as “horrible.” She struggled with keeping up with classes and making connections with professors after missing the first two weeks of instruction. “I felt very isolated,” she said. 

 

     Five days later, Flanagan tested positive again, meaning another five days in isolation for her. By Sept. 8, it was time to test again, but this time, getting a test was a lot more difficult. 

 

     “My roommate went to find tests for me, but there was about a week-long period where she couldn’t find any on campus,” Flanagan said.

 

     Flanagan shared that her roommate had to search off-campus for tests and still had no luck before eventually turning to Amazon, where they had to pay a steep price to ship the tests.

 

     “I was surprised that the vending machines were down for so long,” Flanagan said, “everyone I know was anxious and just wanted to stay safe and keep other people safe.”

 

     Back-to-school season brought about an uptick in positive COVID cases throughout the country, and D.C. was no different. While there is no longer an official count of positive cases at American University, discussion among students and professors over the past few weeks suggests that many in the community are also testing positive. Elizabeth Deal, the assistant vice president for community and internal communications, cited the end of the Federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency in May of 2023 as the reason for the University adjusting protocols.

 

     Although there is no metric for confirmed cases on campus, Deal confirmed that the Student Health Center has provided hundreds of tests since the start of the semester, indicating a high number of students who felt sick or were exposed within the first two weeks of classes.

 

     As students began feeling sick, many turned to the on-campus COVID test vending machines. On Aug. 31, just four days into the start of the semester, one machine began to display an out-of-service sign. Less than a week later, on Sept. 5, all three on-campus machines were out of service.

 

     The Mary Graydon Center testing machine, the only machine located on main campus, remained empty for 12 days until the University restocked all locations on Sept. 11th.

 

     The lack of test availability is not unique to AU; according to Deal, “across the country, supply chain challenges continue to impact the availability of tests.” 

 

     “Our supplier, ShieldT3, experienced a supply chain issue, which temporarily delayed our shipment of antigen tests by approximately two weeks,” Deal said.

 

     According to Deal, “machines are now fully stocked with free rapid tests” and “ antigen tests are also readily available for students, faculty, and staff on request at the Student Health Center.”