Through Mandatory Testing, MSU Catches 30 Asymptomatic Cases Of COVID-19

KSMU | By Jennifer Moore

Published January 15, 2021 at 7:50 AM CST

The Citizen Scholar Statue is one of the iconic landmarks of the MSU campus.

In this segment of Engaging the Community, Missouri State University President Clif Smart speaks with KSMU's Jennifer Moore about coronavirus testing, international students and legislative priorities for this year. Listen to the episode below.

Listen to the segment of Engaging the Community here.

Smart and his executive team at Missouri State University will host another virtual town hall meeting Friday afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00 to update the campus community in more detail about the pandemic—including details about testing and the vaccine rollout.

Participants can join here by Zoom or via telephone by calling 312-626-6799. International numbers are available. The webinar ID is 814 1931 4729.

Asymptomatic testing of on-campus students: 30 students confirmed with COVID-19

MSU required all students who live on campus to get tested for COVID-19 before moving into the residence halls. Smart said so far, about 2,800 people have been tested.

"We learned through through testing people here, I think we had 16 people positive, no symptoms, and yet they were positive. Another dozen or so of that kind of person found out they were positive by testing at home in St. Louis or Columbia or Kansas City or Chicago or somewhere else. So the result of that was we kept 30 people who were asymptomatically positive from moving in the residence hall and then spreading it to others," Smart said.

International students update

"I would say we would expect to have enrolled on the Springfield campus between 1,200 and 1,300 international students this year. That's about this where we were a year ago. The biggest difference is about half those students will be studying in their home country," Smart said.

Travel from South Asia has eased up some, he said, but it's still very difficult for Chinese students to get back to the United States.

"And so many of them will be taking classes online. They'll be studying at their home university. They'll be studying at our branch campus rather than physically being present here," he said.