The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is piloting a new COVID-19 testing trailer that can be used to keep health care workers warm during the winter months. The trailer is made by a Lincoln company, Pacific Engineering Inc., that has been contracted by the state to manufacture testing pods. The first trailer is set-up on the east side of Memorial Stadium and used starting this week as part of UNL’s randomized mitigation testing program. It allows workers to stay warm and people getting tested to use a walk-up window.
“What’s really nice is that the actually swabbing still happens out in the fresh air, kind of through the window,” said Jennifer Nelson, director of UNL’s Nebraska Virology Center. “We’re preventing any concern that might come to be if you were doing testing inside in terms of spreading the virus during that procedure.”
Nelson said the trailers could also be used when vaccines become available. The randomized mitigation program is voluntary and asks students, staff and faculty to take COVID-19 tests even if they don’t have symptoms. UNL’s test positivity rate was under 6% last week.