Tim Morehouse Fencing Club Begins Covid-19 Testing For Its Students and Staff

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club has partnered with Mirimus Laboratories to test TMFC students, coaches and staff for Covid-19 infection using a saliva-based PCR pool testing system. These tests will be conducted on-site at TMFC locations beginning in December, 2020.

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club will be one of the first, if not the first fencing club in the country, to provide regular Covid testing for its members and staff. The club will be testing its coaches and staff weekly in addition to 100 members across varied class groups weekly with pool testing.

When Will Testing Occur?
Generally, we will select one day each week and test 4 different class groups for Covid-19 while they are at the club.We will try to notify members on Sunday before the start of a week which day of an upcoming week will be tested and we will rotate days so that over the course of every 3-week period we will test about 85% of the in-person students.

If the need arises, we can focus testing on a particular cohort if we are informed that a particular student has had an exposure elsewhere.

We will not test anyone that has not submitted a consent form.

About Mirimus Inc:
Mirimus, Inc., a leader in conducting high-volume, high-quality PCR testing, is now in partnership with Tim Morehouse Fencing Club to enable weekly COVID-19 surveillance testing of all staff and students using its pioneering SalivaClear COVID-19 pooled saliva testing platform. The SalivaClear platform is composed of three key elements – saliva-based sampling, pooled testing and gold-standard PCR molecular diagnostics – that, when combined, enable frequent, high-quality, high-throughput, low-cost detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

About Saliva Testing:
Saliva-based sampling is simple, safe and noninvasive, and is just as effective as testing nasal pharyngeal swabs, according to studies conducted by Yale University. Unlike intranasal swabs or blood samples, saliva samples can be easily and painlessly self-collected without the need for needles, nose swabs or medical personnel.  Pooled testing entails combining a small volume of saliva (200 microliters) from up to 24 individual samples to create a single specimen for analysis. A diagnostic is then performed on the entire pool. If a positive test occurs, the pool is narrowed into 12 pools of two to pinpoint the positive individual(s). 

Is this test accurate?
Saliva-based pool testing has shown to have been as accurate as nasal swab testing in studies by Rutgers University and Yale University, with no false positives and only 5% of positives being reported as negative. So there is a 5% chance a positive person could report a negative test when they are in fact positive and only a very minimal possibility of false positives. 

Source:
https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/do-covid-19-coronavirus-saliva-tests-work.h00-159384312.html

Who Else Is Using This Test?

The Hackley School, USA Olympic Speedskating, Notre Dame University, and numerous other groups, professional sports teams, universities and team organizations are using this testing process with great success.

How Are Samples Collected?

Saliva testing sample self-collection is simple, safe, and noninvasive and requires no doctor or nurse on-site. Students provide a small vial of saliva that is bar coded, and we send the saliva overnight to the testing lab; the results will be provided to TMFC within 24-48 hours. 

At the club, under our staff’s supervision, students will be provided with a kit that includes a saliva collection straw. Students will provide a small amount of saliva, seal it into a plastic bag and then deposit it into the testing receptacle. The tests from that day will then be overnighted or brought by carrier to the lab for testing. 

What Happens at the Lab?
At the lab, the individual samples are pooled into groups of 24, after which Mirimus utilizes the FDA Emergency Use Authorized ThermoFisherScientific TaqPathCOVID-19 Combo RT-PCR Kit in a modified method to test each pooled sample. The pooled test results are typically reported to WPS within 12-24 hours of sample receipt at the laboratory. If a test is positive, the pool of 24 is split into 12 pools of two,

What Happens After They Test?
Once the lab has tested the saliva group, it will let us know that there are no positive tests or indicate that there are positives within the group. We will either inform a testing group that everyone is negative or we will inform the group there is a positive within their cohort.

If there are positives within the cohort, we will immediately inform the individuals in the cohort, and we will then need to take the next step and have the lab isolate the positive tests within the group to identify the infected person(s).

Who will we test at Tim Morehouse Fencing Club?
We currently have the ability to test about 100 students and staff per week, so we will be able to test about 85% of the club over every 3-week period, with a focus on student groups who attend the club on multiple days each week.

We will do spot testing of various cohort groups each week. Also, if  the need arises, such as someone reporting their child has been exposed to Covid-19, we can then target our testing at a particular group to learn if there has been any community spread.

The lab will only be getting barcodes and not any names. We will have student names and bar codes at the club so there is a certain level of anonymity. 

All students must have a signed consent form from their parent or guardian to be tested.

For More information please email info@timmorehousefencing.com