Rochester Region Fights COVID-19

Join thousands of your neighbors in the fight against COVID-19 by answering yes or no daily

By Wade S. Norwood

CEO Norwood.
CEO Norwood.

I am writing to ask for your help fighting COVID-19, and it only takes a few seconds.

Our region has launched a new health screening tool. The simple web-based survey will allow our community to identify potential COVID-19 hot spots and direct public health resources such as testing, which protects you, your family and friends.

More than 20,000 residents have already signed up. Join the movement.

Available at RocCOVID.org, the online survey asks if you have a fever, a cough, chills or other coronavirus symptoms. You answer simply yes or no. A text message or email reminds you to check in daily, even if you are well.

RocCOVID does not track individuals. All personally identifiable information is removed and all analysis of the data is at the ZIP code level or higher.

A regional effort, RocCOVID gathers survey data from residents of 13 Finger Lakes counties: Allegany, Chemung, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates.

The project is a collaborative initiative involving county and city governments and two of the region’s hospital systems, Rochester Regional Health and the UR Medicine. Data is encrypted and stored in a secure environment by Common Ground Health, our region’s health research and planning agency.

This innovative tracking tool has the potential to speed up our region’s recovery, but only if we all pitch in to help. That’s why I am asking you to join your neighbors by signing up and sharing the link with everyone over 18 years old from our region.

For more information and to enroll, visit: RocCOVID.org.

We can’t stop this pandemic by ourselves, but working together, we can.

Wade S. Norwood is the chief executive officer at Common Ground Health in Rochester. For more information, visit

www.commongroundhealth.org.