University of Kentucky to begin COVID-19 testing for returning students
University of Kentucky students can now schedule their re-entry COVID-19 tests that are required for any student planning on being physically present on campus during the upcoming spring semester, the university told students via email on Sunday.
Students can schedule their tests online and, according to the university, the COVID-19 testing will begin Thursday and will last through Jan. 30. The tests are free to students. Employees can also continue to receive free testing from the university, but it’s not required.
Students who previously tested positive for COVID-19 on or after Oct. 16 will not be required to participate in re-entry testing, a UK testing website states. A student who has already received a vaccine will have to go through testing, as “it takes time for the body to build immunity after vaccination,” the university stated, citing CDC guidance.
UK is also developing a larger plan for on-campus vaccine distribution and plans on having required, ongoing “maintenance testing” of students during the semester. The university will have more information on how the recurring testing process will work in the coming days, a release stated. UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said the university is working to determine how frequently students will go through the maintenance testing.
“We are working through what the exact frequency will consist of, keeping in mind that we will also continue with retesting and wastewater testing as well as an increasing number of students and members of our campus community who will be vaccinated in the coming weeks and months,” Blanton said.
Over 5,700 frontline workers at UK HealthCare, the university’s hospital system, have already been vaccinated since December, President Eli Capilouto wrote in an email to the campus on Monday. The university will nearly complete the vaccination of first-priority healthcare workers in the coming days. UK will soon move to vaccinate high-risk patients and faculty, staff and students within the university’s healthcare colleges who “interact with patients, function in clinical settings or work in research settings,” Capilouto wrote.
At the beginning of the fall semester, UK tested the nearly 24,000 students who were on campus for the semester. The university’s total enrollment is about 30,000.
Like the fall, students will have access to drive-through testing in the Kroger Field parking lot as well on-campus locations for walk-up testing. But unlike the fall, the walk-up testing locations will not be outdoors. Instead walk-up testing will be conducted inside K-Lair, a campus restaurant on Hilltop Ave., and inside the Blue Box Theater, a performing arts theater within the Gatton Student Center.
UK will also continue to conduct wastewater testing on residence halls and other on-campus locations where students reside and the university will test specific groups of students that testing data shows have a higher prevalence of COVID-19.
During the full course of the fall semester, the university conducted just over 49,000 COVID-19 tests, the school’s COVID-19 dashboard shows. In August and September, the university saw a spike in cases among students, with over 500 active cases in the middle of September.
Campuses across the country experienced a similar spike around that same time period, a CDC report released Friday showed. Counties with larger universities that reopened in the fall, saw a 56 percent increase in COVID-19 incidence, while counties where large universities opted for largely online instruction saw a 17.9 percent decrease in incidence.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 11:50 AM.