Ohio University has partnered with Vault Health to provide asymptomatic COVID-19 testing. All OHIO students, faculty, and staff are expected to choose a pathway as part of the COVID-19 Testing Pathway Program. Those who select the Weekly Testing Pathway or do not select a pathway will be required to test weekly. There is no cost to take the tests.

Vault’s test offerings allow OHIO to use a combination of on-site testing for the Athens campus and at-home testing for all other campuses. There is no cost for students, faculty, or staff to take the tests.

Vault uses a painless, saliva-based PCR test. With a sensitivity and specificity rate of more than 99 percent, the Vault test is a one of the most accurate tests available.

After you have chosen your Testing Pathway, follow the instructions below for information about testing on the Athens campus or on regional and extension campuses.  

What your Vault Health COVID-19 test results mean

POSITIVE: Even if you are not experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19, you are carrying the virus and could pass it to others. Take the following steps immediately:

1. Submit an Ohio University COVID-19 Incident Report.
2. Answer a call from the Ohio University COVID-19 Hotline when a hotline representative calls you to discuss your test results.  
3. If living on campus, notify Housing and Residence Life immediately by emailing reslife@ohio.edu. Relocation to on-campus isolation housing will be communicated and coordinated between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.  
4. Prepare for a call from an OHIO COVID Campus Liaison, who will ask you for a list of anyone you have been in close contact with in the 48 hours prior to testing. Your assigned CCL also will help you arrange for any resources you need to successfully isolate. All OHIO students, faculty and staff are expected to use these resources.

It can be hard to believe a positive test result when you feel just fine. COVID-19 takes advantage of asymptomatic carriers to spread the virus to others. Experts estimate that 40 percent of COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic.

A positive test will be treated as such, and subsequent re-tests – even if negative – will not negate the need to isolate.

You may also be wondering about the potential for a false positive result: This is extremely rare. Less than 1 percent of positive Vault results are inaccurate. If you test positive, take the result seriously and follow the instructions above.  

NEGATIVE: You’re not currently infected with COVID-19. That can change if you get too close to someone who is infected or otherwise encounter the virus. Additionally, the incubation period of the virus can be up to 15 days. Therefore, you may test negative even when infected if there is not sufficient virus in your system for the test to detect. It is critical that you continue to take everyday precautions to stop the spread of COVID-19: wear a mask, wash your hands, stay apart, and stick with your asymptomatic testing program.

INCONCLUSIVE: In the unlikely event that you receive an inconclusive result (Vault’s inconclusive tests hover between 1 percent and 2 percent), the University will request that you test again in three to four days. An inconclusive result may indicate that someone is early in an infection or at the tail end of an infection. We recommend that you retest in five days.