The State University of New York has crossed yet another milestone when it comes to COVID-19 testing: over 1 million campus-conducted tests since the start of the academic year.

As of Wednesday morning, SUNY had conducted 1,001,444 campus-administered tests. SUNY Oswego alone is at 35,636 tests since the beginning of the academic year. Since Jan. 2, SUNY Oswego has conducted 12,966 tests.

With the milestone achieved, SUNY has conducted more tests than some entire states throughout the country. As of Wednesday morning, SUNY has tested more than Vermont (977,567), Wyoming (704,836), South Dakota (414,511) and Idaho (622,353).

SUNY not only required all students to get tested prior to the start of the semester, but now requires all students, faculty and staff to complete weekly tests through the semester.

In a press release from SUNY, currently the higher education system is testing at a 0.53% positivity rate. Over the last 14 days, SUNY has a 0.60% positivity rate, while New York state has a 4.0% positivity rate.

SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras called testing “a part of campus life for now,” providing evidence “to keep our students safe,” he added.

“As the SUNY is the largest higher education system, regular COVID testing of our students, faculty and staff helps us deal swiftly and aggressively with any emerging issues in a targeted way to limit spread and keep campuses safe,” Malatras said. “Hitting 1 million tests wouldn’t be possible without the researching firepower of SUNY Upstate Medical and Quadrant Biosciences, which gave us the world’s number one ranked saliva test—an easy to administer and less intrusive test—which detects asymptomatic cases.”

Upstate Medical University President Dr. Mantosh Dewan also echoed the chancellor’s statement. Upstate worked with Quadrant Bioscences, developing Clarifi COVID-19 test—also known as the saliva test—nearly a year ago. Founder and CEO of Quadrant Biosciences Richard Uhlig said it is “extremely gratifying that the Clarifi COVID-19 test has not only been administered over a million times, but also has been recognized as the most sensitive COVID-19 saliva test by the FDA.”

Upstate is incredibly proud to be a part of this monumental achievement. While I know we would all rather have the pandemic behind us, creating an environment in which testing is accessible, efficient, and accurate is the next best scenario to keep students, faculty, and staff safe on campuses across the state,” Dewan said. “Our team’s impressive work to create the Clarifi COVID-19 test is having a profound impact on every aspect of SUNY—allowing campuses to remain open and offer the world-class education that SUNY is known for. Upstate is proud and humbled to play such an important role in this effort along with our partners—Quadrant and SUNY.”

Upstate Medical currently has the capacity to conduct 200,000 COVID-19 tests per week, according to the press release. However, a new lab is being constructed at the University at Buffalo, which will handle saliva testing for all SUNY campuses in Western New York. It will be operational starting March 1 and it will increase the weekly capacity to 350,000 tests per week.

With the increase, results will have a 24-hour turnaround rather an a 48-hour turnaround.

The press release also states that Malatras is investing $120,000 in the expansion by purchasing Upstate Medical’s COVID-19 test that will be used at UB’s new lab. Other funding will come from Quadrant Biosciences, who will be staffed at UB’s lab alongside SUNY faculty and staff research teams.

“Our ability to scale this vital testing across our campuses over the past several months has paid dividends because as I travel to campuses and I meet with our students, they are happy to be back, and they want to keep it that way,” Malatras said. “Testing is a part of campus life for now, and it provides us with the evidence we need to keep our students safe—our first priority above all else. With our additional capacity, SUNY will also continue to help other community partners in need access our saliva test as well.”