CINCINNATI — This spring, the University of Cincinnati (UC) students, staff and visitors will use the new COVID Check app.

What You Need To Know

  • The University of Cincinnati is implementing a new system spring semester called the COVID Check App

  • The COVID Check App monitors the symptoms of all students and determines whether students are safe enough to enter a building

  • This is just one of several things Ohio universities are doing to keep people safe from COVID-19

It’s a new system at UC that monitors the symptoms of all students and determines whether students are safe enough to enter a building.

“I think it’s the best thing that we can do at this point with everything that we’re facing,” Julius Freeman said. “I think it’s a good way to put the students in a safe space and it makes me feel safe knowing that someone is checking to make sure that people aren’t coming in sick and aren’t putting others at risk.”

UC isn’t the only university with updated COVID-19 safety measures.

Xavier University will have a variety of class options, classes will be pushed back a week and students are recommended to quarantine before taking tests.

Ohio State students will be required to take at-home COVID-19 tests, test again when moving into on-campus residence facilities and test weekly when in-person classes resume.

Kent State University residential students will have mandatory testing. They will have two weeks of remote learning and then in-person classes and after spring break, there will be remote learning.

Freeman said safety measures like the COVID Check App are great. However, he said managing his classes during the pandemic hasn’t been easy.

“You wake up in the morning (and) the first thing you do is roll out of bed into your desk chair to check your emails and check everything so there’s like no departure from the two realities,” he said. “There’s no home life or school life. Everything has just been jumbled into one and it’s very confusing.”

But despite all the adversity he has faced, he says it has made him stronger.

“It has been a major adjustment,” Freeman said. “I’ve had a lot of friends who have either stopped going to school, have taken a gap year, and done all these things. But with the support of my family and friends and people just pushing me to keep it going, I’ve been able to get through it.”

After graduating in the spring, Freeman will attend the University of Illinois for a masters's degree in communication.

“It’s just been a blessing that during this time, I’ve gotten all these things that I’ve needed and wanted and couldn’t imagine would have occurred before now. But it’s just amazing that they’ve all happened now, especially with everything going on,” he said.