Updated by Director of Student Health, Approved by CIRT

March 14, 2022 By Maureen Zambito

WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., March 14, 2022 – Please find below updated contact tracing guidelines as approved by the West Liberty University Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) and following CDC and Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department best practices.

Definition of terms

• Quarantine – separation from exposed people
• Isolation – separation from infected ipeople, even without symptoms
• Close contact in higher education – within 6 feet of someone for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more in a 24 hour period, regardless of masking practices.

Students/faculty/staff should report if they are diagnosed with COVID-19 or if they were named close contact of a positive case of COVID-19 using the positive report form linked here.

If you test positive for COVID-19 (isolate)

Everyone, regardless of their vaccination status:

• Stay home for 5 days. If you are a student residing on campus and cannot return home to self-isolate, WLU will attempt to provide you with self-isolation space based on availability.
• Complete the positive report form, indicating that you have tested positive.
• Inform your close contacts of the possible exposure (contacts see info below)
• Inform your professors that you cannot attend classes in person.
• If you tested off-campus, upload a copy of your positive test result showing your name and test date to the Student Health Portal. Home tests will not be accepted at this time.
• If you have symptoms and your symptoms are gone or greatly resolved after 5 days, you can leave isolation. If you have a fever, you should continue to self-isolate until your fever goes away. Raised
• Health Services will endeavor to contact you before your isolation ends and send you a written release of isolation.
• You will be advised to continue wearing a mask around others for another 5 days.
• Athletes must be seen by Athletic Training before resuming sport participation.

If you have been exposed to someone with Covid-19 (quarantine)
I. If you:

• have been boosted Where
• Completed primary series of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine in the last 5 months Where
• Completed primary series of J&J vaccine in the last 2 months

Then you should:

• Wear a mask around others for 10 days
• Test on Day 5. If you are a student, you can contact Student Health Services to schedule a free COVID test at 304-336-8049, Monday through Friday from 7 p.m. to 3 p.m. or you can test at an off-campus location and upload results to the Student Health Portal. Employees should request a test at one of the local testing sites, such as Doctors Urgent Care or Roxby Labs.

1. If you:

• Completed Pfizer or Moderna primary vaccine series more than 5 months ago and is not boosted Where
• Completed the first streak of J&J over 2 months ago and is not boosted Where
• Are not vaccinated

Then you should:

Stay home for 5 days. After that, continue wearing a mask around others for another 5 days.

• Fill in the positive report form, specifying that you are a direct contact
• Inform your teachers that you cannot attend classes in person
• Test on Day 5. You can contact Student Health Services to schedule a free COVID test at 304-336-8049, Monday through Friday 7-3 p.m. or you can test at an off-campus location and upload the results to the student health portal. . Employees should request a test at one of the local testing sites, such as Doctors Urgent Care or Roxby Labs.

If you develop symptoms, get tested and stay home

NOTE: Family Contacts are people who share a living space with someone diagnosed with COVID-19. This includes bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, kitchens, etc. This also includes roommates in on-campus residence halls, apartments and houses, and roommates in on-campus halls of residence. Family contacts Homework quarantine if exposed to the case.

• If the contact can not separated from the case inside the home, the contact should be quarantined for the case’s (minimum) 5-day isolation period plus an additional 5 days. The contact will then have to wear a mask for an additional 5 days.

The separation requirements are as follows:

• The case should never be in the same room as household members.
• The case cannot share plates, cups, dishes or phones with household members.
• The case should have its own bathroom. Not possible? Housekeeping should do daily cleaning.

If household contacts develop symptoms of COVID-19, they should get tested.

*The protocol is subject to change

Sources:

GREENVILLE COUNTY, SC (WSPA) – School officials in Greenville County have said that starting Tuesday, testing to stay and quarantine practices will be suspended. They said fingers are crossed it can stay that way.

“It’s starting to feel a little more normal. I think that’s what people were hoping for,” spokesman Tim Waller said.

Greenville County schools have seen a decrease in positive COVID-19 cases.

“For two consecutive one-week periods, 0.3% of our population, speaking of students and staff, tested positive for covid,” Waller said.

Which, according to DHEC, means they don’t have to follow the same practices as before.

“As long as we have two consecutive one-week periods of Covid cases below 10%, we no longer have to use the test to stay, we no longer have to quarantine,” he said. declared.

Spokesman Tim Waller said he would carefully monitor the numbers and follow all guidelines.

Further afield in Union County, school days will also be a little different.

“As long as we maintain a positivity rate of less than 10%, we don’t have to do the quarantine or the stay tests,” said Eric Childers, director of administration.

“If we go over that in one location, we will place that school under a test procedure to stay, as we used to before,” he said.

Administrative Director Eric Childers says all of their schools currently meet these criteria.

“The past two years have been really difficult, and so, hopefully, we can complete the 2021-2022 school year and our children can experience what the real school was like without all the restrictions we had to put in place. , ” he said.

Childers said after Monday night’s school board meeting, the mask mandate for Union County schools was also lifted.

For worried parents or students, Waller says they have ways to ease your mind.

“We have rapid tests that we can give to families, we have the drive-through tests,” Waller said.

He says anyone who tests positive will still need to follow the same quarantine procedures. But, for now, it looks like classrooms will have a little more normality.

To track the positivity rate at Greenville County schools, click here.

7NEWS has contacted several school districts regarding their plans, here are those who responded.

Spartaburg County School District 1:

We are currently reviewing our school data from the past week and planning to update our procedures to align with the latest SCDHEC guidelines. We have implemented the latest guidelines from the South Carolina Department of Education that no longer require the use of masks by students or staff on state-owned and operated school buses. We plan to communicate additional changes to our COVID-19 procedures later this week.

Sandra Williams, director of communications for Spartanburg County School District 1

Spartaburg County School District 2:

We will follow the guidelines as indicated. Currently, none of our schools are close to the 10% threshold. Our hope is that with the hygiene and cleaning protocols we have in place, we will definitely stay away from the 10% mark and take a big step towards normality in our schools.

said Spartanburg County School District 2 public relations director Adrian Acosta.

Spartaburg County School District 5:

“We will follow the new DHEC guidelines and rule out close contact and quarantine.”

Melissa Robinette, Public Relations Manager for Spartanburg County School District 5

Spartanburg County School District 7

“District 7 has not yet made a decision on next steps. We plan to discuss and communicate this in the coming days.

Says Beth Lancaster, director of communications for Spartanburg School District 7

If you have been around someone with COVID-19, you should take precautions to avoid spreading the disease. You may find out from a friend, family member or workplace that you have been in close contact with someone who has symptoms or who has tested positive for COVID-19. This puts you at a higher risk of getting sick and spreading the disease to others.

Close contact means spending at least 15 minutes or more within 6 feet of someone (family, friend, co-worker, acquaintance, or someone you don’t know) in a day, with or without a mask.

If you had close contact

1. Follow quarantine guidelines, including wearing a mask. Isolation and quarantine advice

2. If you can, get tested 5 days after exposure or if you develop symptoms. It is best to get tested 5 days after being exposed. The test may not work if you get tested too soon. You can get tested through your doctor or at a community testing site. Call 211 for more information. Currently, many people are looking for tests and resources are limited. Test appointment can be hard to find.

3. If you develop symptoms or test positive, follow isolation advice. Keep away from others, even in your own home, so you don’t make others sick.

4. Continue to wear a properly fitted mask for an additional 5 days if you are quarantined for a shorter period.

HOWELL, NJ — School districts in New Jersey have begun announcing changes to their existing COVID-19 protocols as the state’s mask mandate ends March 7. Among them are Howell Township Public Schools, which recently announced a halt to COVID-19 contact tracing efforts.

On Wednesday, Feb. 9, Howell Township Public Schools Superintendent Joseph Isola announced that beginning Thursday, the school district would no longer be looking for contracts. This means that close contacts at school will no longer be identified and will have to be quarantined.

“However, symptomatic individuals, close household contacts, and those who test positive for COVID-19 will still need to follow appropriate exclusion protocols,” Isola said in a letter to parents in the district.

Howell will also transition to a mask-optional environment in accordance with Governor Murphy’s recent announcement. In the same letter, Isola wrote that the remote learning program would only become available again for students in grades 3-8.

“We are committed to providing a safe learning environment for all individuals and we will monitor available data relating to COVID-19. We will maintain good hygiene and safety protocols, such as physical distancing wherever possible,” Isola continued.

Any additional changes to the district’s COVID-19 protocols will be updated as needed throughout the remainder of the school year.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is no longer conducting COVID-19 contact tracing at schools where universal masking is in place, in accordance with updates to the district’s mitigation plan announced last month . Additionally, staff and students who test positive and show symptoms of COVID-19 are now allowed to return to school or work as early as five days after testing positive, provided the symptoms have resolved. for at least 24 hours without the aid of medication. .

KPBSD communications director Pegge Erkeneff said on Thursday that the decision to halt contact tracing in schools where universal masking is observed was partly due to a spike in cases that nurses and district staff ” couldn’t keep up” in mid-January. A review of the number of close contact students who later tested positive, as well as the time it took for school staff to contact the trace were also factored into the decision, Erkeneff said.

When a school moves to universal masking, Erkeneff said, the time of nurses and staff is “no longer spent” on contact tracing. More generally, Erkeneff said the trend of halting contact tracing is something the KPBSD leadership is watching.

“In mid-January, with the increase in positive cases of COVID-19, our staff were unable to follow up on contact tracing,” Erkeneff said via email.

Erkeneff confirmed that stopping contact tracing in schools where universal masking is in place will skew close contact data reflected on the district’s COVID-19 dashboard by reducing those numbers. She said the dashboard will still reflect data from people who self-report and at schools where contact tracing is still happening.

As of Thursday, at least 13 of KPBSD’s 42 schools — representing about 2,800 students and staff in the district — were operating with universal masking. To determine whether a school enters or exits Universal Indoor Masking, KPBSD uses the criteria outlined in the district’s COVID-19 mitigation plan.

A “conversation” between district administrators and school site administrators is triggered when a school district meets four of the five criteria set out in the plan. Factors considered include a school community positivity rate of 3% or greater, a student absenteeism rate of 25% or greater, the capacity of local and regional hospitals and intensive care units, the number of cases of COVID-19 of one community per 100,000 people and the impact of school staff absenteeism. rate.

Additionally, under changes announced last month, KPBSD staff and students who test positive and show symptoms of COVID-19 are now allowed to return to school or work as early as five days after tested positive. That’s as long as the symptoms go away for at least 24 hours without the help of medication.

Under the district’s previous iteration of the policy, which was announced Jan. 11, COVID-positive students and staff could return to school or work five days after testing positive, but only if they were asymptomatic.

Schools will still follow the district’s symptom-free protocol and apply multi-level COVID-19 mitigation strategies. Students and staff are also encouraged to take advantage of testing resources made available by the district, such as free at-home testing kits, in-school testing, and testing from community partners.

According to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard, which went live last August, more than 1,650 positive COVID-19 test results have been reported to the district by students and more than 350 positive results have been reported by staff. KPBSD’s COVID-19 Dashboard can be viewed at covid19.kpbsd.org/dashboard.

Contact reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.

The Coatesville Area School District will no longer conduct contact tracing in accordance with its updated health and safety plan, approved by the board at the Jan. 25 meeting.

Superintendent Tomás Hanna said the decision to end contact tracing was based on recent guidance from the Chester County Health Department.

Administration recommends that all students, staff, and visitors continue to follow masking guidelines in all district buildings and on school transportation. Students and staff who test positive for COVID-19 are asked to self-isolate for a period of five days from the date of onset of their symptoms before returning to school. According to Hanna, the district administration will continue to review local transmission rates and make updated recommendations to the council as needed.

The district continues to manage its $9.3 million budget gap for the 2022-23 school year. The $9.3 million total does not include salary or benefit increases, charter school costs, regular or special education costs, or contract escalations for the coming year. .

Hanna presented options to the council on how the district could work to close its budget gap.

Options include exploring how the district can use emergency relief funds for elementary and secondary schools to offset expenses directly related to COVID-19 relief and evaluating how this can reduce programming and personnel costs. Hanna stressed that if the district were to make any program or staff reductions, it would aim to make choices that will have the least direct impact on Coatesville students.

“If we find areas in staffing that we can reduce to help balance the budget, first we need to weigh those options with the impact on student achievement,” Hanna said.

The next board meeting will be at 6 p.m. on February 8.

YOLO COUNTY (CBS13) – CBS13 has learned that several people have tested positive for Covid-19 and have not received calls or text messages from contact tracers for weeks.

This raised two questions: are people unknowingly exposing others and is contact tracing necessary?

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A person will test positive for Covid-19 and will only receive a call or text from contact tracers after they have already tested negative, meaning anyone they have seen in person in the meantime has already potentially been infected.

“If contact tracing doesn’t happen in a timely manner, it won’t help,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, professor of medicine and public health at USC.

Dr Klausner says that with the omicron Covid-19 variant prevalent, the program is of little value.

“Omicron has a shorter incubation period,” he said. “To effectively monitor omicron through contact tracing, calls should be made within 24-48 hours of a person testing positive.”

And it is not possible. Due to high demand for testing, local labs are being beefed up and positive results take several days to reach the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) which is in charge of contact tracing notifications.

“Last week in Yolo County, we had the most positive tests we’ve ever had,” said Yolo County spokesman John Fout.

Yolo County has had a record 238 cases per 100,000 people.

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“When you have that many tests, you’re going to have test delays,” Fout said.

Delayed contact tracing means potential for more Covid-19 infections.

“There are a few backups on the state system. The state system is a kind of failsafe. Other systems are especially schools,” Fout said. “If they have a positive contact, they will let people know, as well as workplaces. When there is a positive result, they notify everyone in the office.

So what is contact tracing good for? According to job search site Indeed, the average salary for contact tracers is $27.83 per hour.

Dr. Klausner says the money spent may not be worth it anymore.

“The contact tracing program should be redesigned,” Dr. Klausner said. “Staff could come out to motivate people to get vaccinated. They could also be reassigned to case management.

This would mean focusing only on reaching out to at-risk populations and connecting them to medical care.

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CBS13 reached out to CDPH to ask about delays in their system and if they were considering a new role for contact tracers. We haven’t had a response.

Despite government assurances that contact tracing was nearly foolproof, the Omicron outbreak quickly highlights the shortcomings of the system, writes Matthew Scott.

TO ANALYSE: The first signs of contact tracers unable to track the burden of new positive Covid cases in the community have emerged.

Two cases from the Omicron outbreak underwent testing and received positive test results without hearing from the contact tracing team.

The cases were an Air NZ worker from the Auckland flight to Nelson and a kitchen worker from Summerset Retirement Village in Flatbush, where a positive case among staff has now led to a mini-lockdown for residents.

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Contact tracers are responsible for identifying potential contacts of a positive case and contacting them to provide advice on testing and self-isolation.

If people don’t log in or leave contact details when they visit what become places of interest, tracing work can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Writing in Newsroom last week, University of Otago epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig warned: ‘We can expect contact tracing to drop pretty quickly.

And indeed, on Monday, the Department of Health reported that the contact tracing team had a busy day looking for anyone who might have been near a suspected case of Omicron.

However, a Department of Health spokesperson said the cases were not existing close contacts of other cases, meaning they were not known until they tested positive.

Yet both were listed as having come into contact with the Nelson-Tasman family. Both cases were documented as having been at places of interest, one on the same flight and the other at the same wedding.

The lapses run counter to government assurances towards the end of last year that contact tracing could handle the summer surge, with a Department of Health spokesman saying the system could handle 1,000 new cases daily or 6,000 contacts per day.

Chief Health Officer Dr Ashley Bloomfield conceded no doubts about the system. “I’m confident in our contact tracing capability, acknowledging again that the way we use it has changed to be very focused on those very close, close contacts,” he told Newsroom in November.

The problem is that an event like a wedding or several hours enclosed in the tight confines of an airplane cabin with limited ventilation can produce a lot of very close contacts.

An Air NZ spokesperson reported that an air crew employee had been tested after developing symptoms, with no communication from contact tracers.

Similarly, the Summerset Retirement Village kitchen worker was reportedly invited to the wedding at the Totara Event Center in New Lynn on Saturday, Jan. 15, attended by a family who had flown in from the Nelson area.

The first family members to attend the wedding tested positive Thursday morning. But it wasn’t until Friday night that the worker was told by another wedding attendee and went to get tested on his own. Although he works with vulnerable older people, he was not approached by contact tracers until told of the positive result on Saturday.

A spokesperson for Summerset Retirement Village said the company acted immediately after hearing the worker’s positive test result by deep-cleaning the kitchen and closing the village and care center completely.

More than 300 Covid tests were then carried out among staff, care homes and residents of the village.

As public health strategy evolves, contact tracing is set to become less important, with Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins even noting yesterday that at some point suspected cases won’t even be asked out and to get an exam.

It portends a new phase of the pandemic for New Zealand, where halting the spread has been replaced by slowing the spread and reliable tools of the past two years like contact tracing and MIQ are replaced by booster injections and self-isolation.

The difference is that the latter is much more about personal responsibility – the responsibility to keep your immunity in good shape with the best tools at hand, and the responsibility to keep yourself away from others if you wake up sneezing. and coughing.

Tuesday’s Department of Health statement appears to be intended to lower expectations about the effectiveness of contact tracing in this new era.

One of the new hotspots is a busy Sunday night party at the Pukekohe Indian Hall.

“The Auckland Regional Public Health Department believes a large number of people attended this event,” the statement from the Department of Health said. “Anyone in this location at the relevant times is urged to get tested immediately and self-isolate until a negative result is returned.”

Tracking down everyone who attended the Pukekohe event wouldn’t be easy if everyone didn’t scan.

But if the government’s indications are to be believed, the days of people being searched by places visited as the first line of defense against the virus may be coming to an end.

CANTON – Due to the increase in COVID-19 cases, the St. Lawrence County Public Health Department will stop contact tracing and investigating cases except those they identify as the most vulnerable populations. These include older adults, school-aged children, people in daycares, nursing homes, health care facilities and other congregate settings.

Additionally, Isolation and Quarantine are moving to an honor system. The department said in a news release that those who test positive should self-isolate and notify any close contacts who may have been exposed.

“You may not receive a call from St. Lawrence County/New York State Public Health if you have tested positive or been exposed to COVID-19. However, you will still be notified by where you were tested of your results,” the department said. “People who have tested positive will be required to self-isolate and anyone who has been exposed must self-quarantine.”

County officials cite New York state’s “evolving priorities” as the reason for the change.

“We are seeing a higher number of new infections every day than we have seen at any time throughout the pandemic and staff are unable to reach all cases and contacts in a timely manner. In an effort to increase the effectiveness of contact tracing and our response, our department will transition to a self-directed isolation and quarantine process,” said Jolene F. Munger, acting county director of public health, in a press release.

The county has reported 200 to 300 new cases of COVID-19 per day so far in 2022.

Anyone notified that they are a close contact should self-quarantine, unless exempt, and monitor for symptoms. They should get tested on the fifth day after exposure, or sooner if symptoms develop.

For more information on who is considered a close contact, see the State Department of Health’s Contact Tracing and Case Investigation Online FAQ at wdt.me/covidFAQ.

Employers, schools, daycares, and health care facilities should work with staff, students, and customers to help them identify and report exposures that occur in their facilities. For schools, this may mean a change to general notification that a student in a class has tested positive and, in some situations, students may still be excluded from school, the department said.

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the county and across the country, health officials say it’s vital that all residents continue to follow what they call “the six pillars of prevention” to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The six pillars are self-isolating and notifying close contacts of a positive result; self-quarantine in case of exposure; wear a mask in public; hand washing; staying home when sick; get tested if sick or exposed; and get vaccinated and boosted.

Anyone who is not vaccinated or strengthened can visit the county’s website, www.stlawco.org/Departments/PublicHealth, or call 315-386-2325 for a list of vaccination clinics and to schedule an appointment. .

“We must continue to apply the six pillars of prevention to protect others and prevent the spread when we test positive for COVID-19,” Ms. Munger said. “The basic isolation and quarantine processes do not change; however, it will now emphasize personal responsibility to do the right thing and SLCPH would like to thank those who complied with public health orders.

People who have been notified that they have tested positive for COVID-19 can submit an online isolation request form at wdt.me/covidForms or visit the county website.

To determine the length of isolation or quarantine, visit the county’s website. For specific guidance for people living in communities and healthcare workers, see the state DOH website.

Anyone who tests positive at home should submit results online at shorturl.at/glmDFor, call 315-286-2325 or email SLCCOVID19SharedMailbox@stlaw.org.