News

Hello, and welcome back to campus!

As a reminder please make sure that you are logging into the #StaySafeCarthage Daily Check-in app every morning when you receive your text message. At check-in you should have received a digital thermometer and smell test card. It is important that you are using these tools to monitor symptoms throughout the term. We all want to have a successful semester, but this will only happen if we are all taking the appropriate steps to stay safe together.

Getting into a routine can be helpful! For instance, you could keep your thermometer by your toothbrush. Brush your teeth and then take your temperature. Additionally, there is increasing evidence that smell loss is an early sign of COVID-19 (possibility in over 90 percent of cases). As we enter our first week of in-person instruction, there is particular urgency in the need for widespread monitoring of symptoms, including smell loss.

You could help prevent the spread of the disease if you identify your smell loss early. Given that people often cannot detect their own smell loss unless it is complete, the college has provided you with a test to monitor your sense of smell. That eight-item smell test can be used several times.

There is also a way to contribute to meaningful research. If you join the smell study, we will give you another tool (the three-item kit) that we expect will last for months and thus can be used to monitor your symptoms daily. The study consists of the following:

• Completing the 8-Item Sensonics Smell Test, which you were given at check-in, weekly (each Sunday). This takes less than five minutes to complete.
• Trying to smell odors in a three-item kit daily, which will help you respond to the daily symptom monitoring question about smell loss. This takes less than one minute to complete.

We will be putting all participants’ names into a raffle for monthly gift cards.
For more information visit our website: www.carthage.edu/smellstudy

Thank you for doing your part in keeping campus safe and healthy!