The first cases of COVID-19 in Florida are reported in Hillsborough and Manatee counties.

A UF Study published in Science shows the limits of travel bans in controlling the spread of COVID-19.

Study shows limits of travel bans in controlling new coronavirus spread

At the advent of the pandemic, UF Health activates its crisis management plans and opens hospital-based Command Centers, which manage operations and communications during emergencies on each of its campuses.

UF Health Shands Hospital admits the first patient with COVID-19

The first cases of COVID-19 at UF are confirmed.

The Florida Department of Health reaches out to state universities to recruit epidemiology students and faculty to assist with contact tracing. Several UF faculty and students respond and are deployed around the state.

Juggling classes, research, UF students join the fight against COVID-19

The UF College of Dentistry provides emergency-only care for patients and begins adding environmental and other safeguards to help protect patients and providers.

A Safe Return to Dental Care

COVID-19: On the Front Lines of Oral Health

UF epidemiologists are deputized by the Florida Department of Health in Alachua County to conduct contact tracing on local COVID-19 cases. The group expands to include other volunteer faculty, staff and students who assist with disease investigation, later forming the UF Health Screen, Test & Protect team.

Watch Video: What is UF Health Screen, Test & Protect?

Faculty, staff and students from the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions department of environmental and global health build a high-throughput COVID-19 testing lab at EPI in just 10 days.

EPI delivers: high capacity COVID-19 testing lab built in 10 days

The UF Veterinary Hospitals began offering curbside service to preserve patient care while protecting clients and staff.

UF moves all classes completely online; thousands of essential workers, including front-line health care workers with UF Health, officers with University Police Department and personnel with Facilities Services, continue to work in person.

The first COVID-19 case is confirmed at UF Health Leesburg Hospital.

Faculty and students with the UF Health academic health center volunteer to assist with COVID-19 testing at The Villages®.

UF launches Aid-a-Gator to support students. We disbursed $2,598,636.53 in Aid-a-Gator to 2,917 students in the pandemic timeframe. Additionally, to date we have awarded 258 faculty and staff a total of $170,464.17 in aid.

• UF Research directs all but mission-critical, essential research to go to remote status.
• UF Health leads the effort to begin COVID-19 testing at The Villages®.
  Article: UF Health working with The Villages® and state officials to rapidly ramp up coronavirus testing
• UF Health in Gainesville puts all elective surgeries and hospital-based procedures on hold and works to shift many appointments and patient visits to a telehealth model.

UF researchers battle COVID-19 with an open-source ventilator made from hardware store parts and ingenuity.

UF researchers lead the way in rapidly designing, building low-cost, open-source ventilator

UF/IFAS plant and soil clinics add remote services to serve Florida’s agriculture industry

UF plant and soil diagnostic labs essential to Florida agriculture, economy during COVID-19

The first COVID-19 case is confirmed at UF Health Jacksonville.

Researchers from across UF and UF Health join an effort to collect and donate personal protective equipment to build upon existing stockpiles in support of clinical colleagues working on the front lines.

UF Health researchers donate gloves, masks and other PPE to support frontline colleagues

Student Affairs launches the Virtual Student Union to provide opportunities for students to engage in services, resources and programs virtually.

Virtual Student Union

UF mobilizes to feed families in the community.

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UF Health Central Florida’s clinical laboratory team, working with UF Health Shands, develops a rapid, in-house COVID-19 test for patients under investigation.

The UF College of Dentistry launches a teledentistry service to provide safe triage and care for patients with emergency oral health issues. While initially only for patients of record in Gainesville, Hialeah, St. Pete, Naples and Wildlight, this service is eventually opened for patients throughout Florida, not just UF Health patients.

Teledentistry Helps Address Emergencies

UF announces it will offer a full suite of courses online for the Summer A, B and C semesters.

UF Health begins offering COVID-19 testing to first responders and emergency room employees in Gainesville.

UF Health making coronavirus testing available to first responders and ER employees

Mary Frietag of Leesburg is the first COVID-19 patient to be discharged from UF Health Leesburg Hospital after “graduating” from a weeklong COVID-19 treatment.

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COVID-19 research continues through the quarantine. In the photo above, Jurgen Bulitta, Ph.D., a professor in the UF College of Pharmacy, and Ashley Brown, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UF College of Medicine, study a trio of existing medications known to have broad antiviral activity in suppressing the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

• UF Health and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute begin awarding COVID-19 Rapid Response Pilot Research Fund grants of up to $100,000 to support initiatives with immediate impact on the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of COVID-19. So far, more than $2 million has been awarded.
  Article: For UF researchers, pausing and resuming work has brought major challenges, sparked innovation
• UF Health resumes all elective inpatient and outpatient surgeries and procedures at all its locations, recognizing the urgency of revamping services for non-coronavirus patients whose medical conditions and illnesses require care even in the face of a pandemic.
• UF Health creates a team of “champions” to help elderly COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized handle delirium brought on by isolation.

UF Health Screen, Test & Protect launches an initiative to test and contact trace faculty, staff and students.

UF Health Screen, Test & Protect

Spring commencement is held virtually; 9,077 students graduate and are celebrated in new ways

Century Tower is bathed in blue light as a show of support for the area’s first responders. The event includes a drive-by of local law enforcement and a ShandsCair helicopter fly-by.

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UF Research moves to stage 1 of its Research Resumption Plan for critical and time-sensitive research. About 3,000 faculty are approved to return to their research spaces in this phase.

• UF Research moves to stage 2 of its Research Resumption Plan, allowing a gradual return of all researchers with limits of one person per 250 square feet. Another 1,000 faculty are approved to return in this phase.
• UF Health students launch UF’s chapter of the COVID-19 Student Service Corps.
  Article: UF Health students tackle community needs through COVID-19 Student Service Corps

Leon Haley, M.D., CEO of UF Health Jacksonville, dean of the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville and an emergency medicine physician, gives a moment of silence in remembrance of George Floyd and all others, marking a significant moment in history during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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UF Research moves to stage 3 of its Research Resumption Plan, continuing a gradual return of all researchers with limits of one person per 150 square feet. Ultimately, this stage has resulted in about 7,000 researchers returning to their research.

UF approves a policy requiring face coverings and physical distancing inside all UF and UF Health buildings.

UF Health takes COVID-19 testing to off-campus UF locations.

The #GatorsWearMasks campaign launches.

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UF launches its reopening plan for the fall semester.

UF Student Government launches “I Pledge Florida,” urging students to uphold healthy behaviors in partnership with the city of Gainesville and Santa Fe College.

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UF announces that faculty earned a record $900.7 million in research funding in fiscal year 2020, despite many activities being paused for more than two months due to the pandemic. Over the past 10 years, research awards to the university have increased 45% from $619 million in 2011.

University of Florida hits record $900 million in research awards

Summer commencement is held virtually; 2,607 students graduate.

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Student Affairs provides more than 50,000 Gator Care Kits to students over two semesters. The kits included reusable masks, hand sanitizer and first-aid kits.

Ira Longini, Ph.D., and World Health Organization colleagues publish recommendations for COVID-19 vaccine trials in The Lancet.

Experts outline path to development of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines on a global scale

Fall semester begins with more than 900 class sections in-person.

• New research provides strong evidence that aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be possible.
  Article: UF Researchers Find Viable Viruses in Aerosols that Cause COVID-19
• UF/IFAS educates more than 800 farmworkers about COVID-19.
  Article: UF/IFAS Extension works with FDACS to help farmworkers stay safe from COVID
• Members of the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions department of environmental and global health begin wastewater surveillance of UF’s campus, Gainesville and Cedar Key.
  Article: Protecting a campus through its wastewater

The first physically distanced Gators home football game is held with an estimated 15,000 fans in the stadium — far fewer than the normal 90,000-plus crowd. (The Gators beat South Carolina 38-24.)

UF reports a record number of applications for fall 2021: 48,066, up 3.6% over the previous year.

UF Health Jacksonville is the first of five hospitals in Florida to receive COVID-19 vaccine doses. Emergency medicine physician, UF Health Jacksonville CEO and UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville Dean Leon Haley, M.D., is the first in the state to receive the Pfizer vaccine, and other front-line workers at UF Health Jacksonville are immunized.

UF Health Jacksonville first in Florida to administer COVID-19 vaccine

UF Health becomes the first medical center in the Southeast to implant a novel diaphragmatic neurostimulator to help COVID-19 patients on ventilators breathe.

UF Health among first in world to use novel diaphragmatic pacer to help COVID-19 patients breathe

The first Pfizer vaccinations are administered at UF Health in Gainesville.

UF Health in Gainesville begins vaccinating high-risk health care employees against COVID-19

The first Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines in Lake and Sumter counties are administered at UF Health Central Florida. The first three recipients include infectious disease physician Elias N. Maroun, M.D., UF Health The Villages® Hospital observation unit nurse Janet Bennett, R.N., and UF Health Leesburg Hospital cardiac medical unit nurse Rolando Santana Banos, R.N.

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UF Health Central Florida begins COVID-19 vaccinations for front-line health care workers and medical staff

Fall commencement is held virtually; 3,555 students graduate. Fall semester ends with no evidence of viral transmission in classroom or laboratory settings.

A team of UF neuroscientists analyzes two smell tests under a new NIH grant aimed at developing inexpensive, at-home tests to help identify new cases of COVID-19 and provide a warning sign of a community outbreak in time to thwart it.

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Smell tests evaluated as potential tool to identify COVID-19

The first Moderna vaccines are administered at UF Health in Gainesville.

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Moderna vaccinations begin for health care employees at UF Health in Gainesville

Students from the academic colleges of UF Health volunteer to help with COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

Spring semester begins with more than 4,200 in-person class sections — nearly as many as spring 2020. New safety measures include significantly increased testing, a daily classroom cleaning regimen and the issuance of N95 masks for all instructors teaching in person. The average daily testing capacity for UF Health Screen, Test & Protect hits more than 2,600.

UF Health Jacksonville discharges the 1,000th patient recovered from COVID-19.

UF releases official enrollment numbers for fall 2020: 57,841 — a new record.

UF Health partners with the Florida Department of Health in Alachua County and the UF Athletic Association to hold a mass vaccination event at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. More than 1,100 Alachua County residents ages 65 and older are immunized.

UF Health, state Department of Health bring COVID-19 vaccinations to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium

• The CDC releases findings showing UF led the way in indoor mask compliance among the six universities who participated in the study.
  Article: University of Florida top among six university campuses for indoor mask use, CDC study finds
• UF College of Nursing faculty and students volunteer at vaccination clinics.
  Article: Gaining a sense of purpose in the midst of COVID-19

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As of March 1st, 2021:

• 1,252,443 masks (1,086,650 disposable masks, 73,423 cloth masks and 92,370 N95 masks) have been distributed.
• More than 1,300 hand sanitizing stations have been installed and 3,234 gallons of hand sanitizer has been used.
• 195,149 COVID-19 tests have been administered.
• 40,623 people have received their 1st dose and 35,642 people have received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Getting back to normal is finally within our grasp. Through our collaboration with the Florida Department of Health in Alachua County, we’re proud to have vaccinated thousands of UF students, faculty and staff 16 years and older today (April 5th 2021) at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Watch Video on Youtube: Vaccinations at UF’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium