Aspirus St. Luke's Invites First Responders & Essential Workers to Participate in National COVID-19 Study

St. Luke’s is inviting first responders and essential workers to participate in a national study on COVID-19.

St. Luke’s has partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and five other research sites across the country to study how COVID-19 moves through populations of people.

The RECOVER Study (Research on the Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Emergency Response and Healthcare Personnel) asks participants to swab their own noses (about an inch deep) every week to test for COVID-19, and to do occasional blood tests to look for antibodies to the disease. This study will go on for approximately a year.

The RECOVER Study aims to see if people can be infected with COVID-19 more than once, to see if everyone who is infected makes antibodies, and to see how many people who are positive actually get sick.

St. Luke’s already has more than 400 of its own healthcare workers enrolled, and is now looking to add at least 150 additional participants working in other occupations with increased risk of exposure to COVID-19.

St. Luke’s is looking for at least 50 first responders (firefighters, EMS workers, and law enforcement personnel) and at least 100 essential workers (jobs that cannot be done from home and involve being within an arm’s length of other people) to join the study and help the scientific community learn more about the disease.

To be eligible to join, people must:

• Work at least 30 hours per week as a first responder or essential worker
• Be willing to swab their own nose once a week (during the study, participants will be informed of positive swab results)

• Be willing to have blood drawn 3 times during the study
• Receive their healthcare at St. Luke’s
• Have a smart phone with internet and texting capabilities

If you are interested in participating, email RecoverStudy@slhduluth.com to request an eligibility form.