During Spring Semester 2021, voluntary COVID-19 testing opportunities will continue for faculty and staff.
Employees seeking voluntary testing must register in advance.
Testing, along with healthy behaviors and practices, is important to reducing COVID-19 viral transmission and spread – thus helping to safeguard our entire community.
This mitigation testing is open to any UC employee without symptoms of COVID-19 who wants voluntarily testing in order to obtain their COVID-19 status. The testing is open to all full-time and part-time employees and is free.
Important note: Employees who have COVID-19 symptoms should notify their personal medical provider.
UC is using the highly sensitive viral test known as a PCR. PCR testing is considered the gold standard in SARS-CoV-2 detection. This test detects RNA (or genetic material) that is specific to the virus and can detect the virus within days of infection, even among those who have no symptoms. Testing will be conducted by Wild Health Laboratory of Lexington, Ky.
Employees seeking voluntary testing must register in advance. Once you have made an appointment, you will receive a confirmation email verifying your appointment time to your UC email account.
Please plan to arrive on site a few minutes before your appointment time, practice social distancing and wear a facial covering.
Results will be provided by Wild Health to University Health Services (“UHS”) and UC’s COVID Check. The results are maintained in the COVID Check database and will not be maintained in employees’ electronic medical records.
Employees will be notified of their results generally between 48-72 hours after the test. If the test is:
IMPORTANT - All employees with a positive test result are required to isolate at home for 10 days from the date of the test if they remain asymptomatic. If symptoms arise, the period of isolation may be extended by your medical provider. COVID Watch will not notify your supervisor regarding this absence or test result. Employees are required to follow all UC Human Resources policies and procedures regarding time off from work in the event they must isolate and cannot work remotely. Questions about time off from work, including sick leave, and remote work may be addressed to Manager of Leave Administration (513-556-6951).
In addition, employees who test positive are strongly encouraged to answer the questions from COVID-19 Contact Tracers regarding persons they may have exposed (e.g., household members, or UC members closer than six feet for more than 15 minutes over a 24-hour period). Please be advised that UHS is required to notify the local health department of all positive test results, and your local health department may perform additional case investigation and contact tracing.
Additional Information: UC employees will continue to be offered voluntary participation in the university’s ongoing mitigation testing currently planned for Spring Semester 2021. For the latest information about the university’s response to COVID-19, visit uc.edu/publichealth.
Uptown Campus mitigation testing will take place Mondays and Tuesdays (staring Monday, January 25, and Tuesday, January 26) in the basketball courts on the lower level of the Campus Recreation Center. Testing hours will run 10 a.m.-6 p.m., and testing is free, fast and easy -- requiring less than 5 minutes to complete.
Voluntary Testing
And even though we have requirements around testing, voluntary participation in testing will still be an option for students, faculty and staff on campus via mitigaton testing in the CRC (see above) as well as on-campus testing options provided by Hamilton County Test and Protect. Hamilton County Test and Protect will offer testing each week, starting the week of January 25, as follows:
Please note that Test and Protect will request insurance information; however, if a student's insurance does not cover the test, there will be no charge to the student.
January 21, 2021
Louito Edje, MD, associate dean of graduate medical education and family medicine physician at the University of Cincinnati, helps clear up misconceptions about the COVID-19 vaccine in communities of color. The vaccine does not contain any of the virus and offers protection for individuals who chose to take it. Edje spoke with Cincinnati talk show host Lincoln Ware.
January 21, 2021
UC research, published in JAMA Oncology, shows that chemotherapy before surgery for some pancreatic cancer patients may not improve survival rates.
January 21, 2021
Oriana Zinani, a graduate student in molecular developmental biology at the University of Cincinnati, is part of a team of researchers using zebrafish embryos to study a gene mutation that causes scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine that typically occurs in humans just before puberty.
