Contact tracing is a critically important
tool in our COVID-19 response.
Learning who an infected person may have exposed
can break the chain of transmission and
limits the spread.
If a person tests positive, contact tracers
work quickly to identify any close contacts
that may have been exposed, and inform them.
This is strictly confidential.
It’s someone who was within 6 feet of an
infected person for at least 10 minutes, starting
from 48 hours before illness.
Roommates or suitemates will be notified and
be quarantined, if exposed.
Contact tracing begins with you!
The Health Information Line, option 1, for employee advice
and the Student Health Service for students,
are both staffed by healthcare professionals to help optimize campus prevention strategies.
But that can only work if employees and students work in partnership with us.
If you're COVID-19 daily health self screener tells you to stay home,
if you are feeling ill,
if you have tested positive for COVID-19,
or if you have been exposed to someone who has,
please stay off campus.
Or if you are already here, go home.
And make sure you call us and have a conversation.
We don't care how many times you call us, or how many questions you have,
or how many times you have to run things past us.
We would rather have you call us and have those conversations.
Contact tracing is a confidential process.
If you are positive for COVID or have symptoms, we'll speak with you about who you have been in contact with,
and they will not reveal your identity.
It is a process that is private.
It is a process that is personal.
And it is a process that is compassionate and understanding of your needs.
That information is shared with the local Department of Health, we are required to do that.
But that is it.
We recognize that we are in a global pandemic, and that there are so many people
that are being exposed to the virus in so many different ways.
And we're learning more and more about this virus.
So your participation and your help with this is just so crucial.
Contact tracing is just a fancy term for a process that is simply a conversation.
But that conversation is actually very, very important.
It's probably one of the most important conversations that we will have with faculty, staff and students
to keep our campus community safe.
