Campus News

UK COVID-19 Testing Site to Move From College Way to Kroger Field Parking Lot Dec. 7

photo of covid testing at Kroger Field in August - cars driving through testing area
COVID-19 testing at Kroger Field took place at the beginning of the fall semester at UK. Pete Comparoni | UK Photo.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 4, 2020) — The free, public drive-thru COVID-19 testing location offered by the University of Kentucky at College Way off Alumni Drive will move to Kroger Field parking lot beginning Monday, Dec. 7. The move will allow for more space to test more people.

“To meet the demand for more testing of Lexington area residents, we are expanding our capacity by moving to the Kroger Field location,” said UK Police Chief Joe Monroe who is heading up UK’s Emergency Operations Center during the coronavirus pandemic. “We also are expanding the hours of operation through Dec. 30.”

The drive-thru testing site will be located in the Blue Lot at Kroger Field with entry from Alumni Drive. The site will allow for six lanes of cars; that’s four more lanes than were available at the College Way site.

Also, the operation hours will increase by two more hours daily. Testing will take place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week at the Kroger Field location and at UK’s other testing site — Eastern State Hospital at 1350 Bull Lea Road. Testing at both sites is free and open to the public.

Appointments can be made for both locations at this website: Lexington.wildhealth.com. Pre-scheduling an appointment will help expedite waiting times.

“As Kentucky is seeing a surge in positive cases of COVID-19, we want to do our part to test as many people as possible through the end of the year,” Monroe said. “Our goal is to test more than 40,000 people this month between both sites, and we can accomplish that with this expansion of capacity and hours.”

Both Kroger Field and Eastern State Hospital testing sites are operated by UK’s testing partner Wild Health, who has administered more than 40,500 nasal swab tests at the two sites since Aug. 24. Wild Health performs the reverse transcription - polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.

As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.   

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