Pilar Briggs

With the help of New Castle County and the CARE Act funding of $5.5 million, the University has started its Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory at the Wilmington location. The purpose of building the laboratory in Wilmington is to be able to send Covid-19 tests to a close-by location to save time and money, as opposed to shipping them to California.

On January 29^th, New Castle County and the University held a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the launch. The University’s President, Dr. Tony Allen, NCCo Executive, Matt Meyers, Testing for America official, Dr. Neil Hockstein, and the entire Delaware Congressional Delegation were in attendance.

Student, Hajara Bakaar gives her thoughts on the new building: “I think it’s a good decision that Del State made as a way to save money, and to make it easier for any at Del State and residents that in the New Castle County area.”

Another student Sherman Jefferson says, “I think it was a good idea to build a location in Wilmington, because there’s students who decided to stay home and now they have a location to get tested that may be closer to them.”

It has also been announced that the University’s faculty will stop using nasal swabs in substitution for saliva swabs.

Jefferson gives further commentary on the matter: “As long as they produce the same results, I feel the methods don’t matter.”

The laboratory plans to extend test analyzation to the University’s student-athletes and coaches soon, while the samples of the students and faculty members will start to be processed this month. New Castle residents’ samples will be analyzed starting in the spring.