The University of Illinois System said on Wednesday that its national COVID-testing unit Shield T3 has announced affordable, gold-standard, pooled saliva-based PCR testing services to universities, K-12 schools and companies for mass and easy testing.

According to the university, the organizations that utilize its covidSHIELD test for their employees or students have the option to collect samples from up to eight people and then test them in a single pool or "batch" using one test, rather than run each sample on its own test.

In addition, the pooled offering is now possible after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration granted the covidSHIELD test emergency use authorization for pooling earlier this month. If the pool is positive, then one or more of the people tested in that pool may be infected, so each sample in that pool is tested individually. Fewer supplies are used and more tests can be run simultaneously, leading to quicker results.

Concurrently, the Shield T3 testing system has a built-in capability for monitoring test results and vaccine compliance via an online dashboard and an ability to display the compliance status in a personal passport/badge application.