Testing and Contact Tracing

COVID-19 Testing

The decision of whether a test may need to be conducted will be determined by the student or staff member’s physician, the school physician, or Jefferson County Public Health Services except if a student or staff member is symptomatic. If symptomatic, a COVID 19 test will be required to return to school.

In the event that large-scale testing may need to be conducted at the school, the district administration will consult with the School Physician or the Jefferson County Public Health Services, working with New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) to identify potential provider(s) and to develop testing protocols and/or procedures.

Contact Tracing Jefferson County Schools

Local health department and school coordination is an integral part of mitigating COVID-19. Both are committed to coordinating all activities necessary to ensure the health of students, staff, and the community. Jefferson County Public Health Service (JCPHS) will conduct case investigation of individuals with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19. Contact tracing follows case investigation and is a process to identify, monitor, and support individuals who may have been exposed to a person with COVID-19.

Staff of the school will play an important role in supporting the health department efforts to obtain needed information. Similar collaboration occurs routinely for case and contact investigations of other communicable diseases and would be expected to continue seamlessly for COVID-19 investigations. When a COVID-19 case is identified, JCPHS will request assistance from the school to identify potential contacts.

Case investigators and contact tracers will:

· Identify potential contacts through interview of the person (or parent/guardian for children) with COVID-19 and school personnel.

o The positive person (or parent/guardian for children) is interviewed by JCPHS staff, who elicit information about the person’s illness, determine when they may have become infectious and determine other people who might have been exposed. Those potentially exposed individuals (or parent/guardian) are then interviewed; persons who are determined to be close contacts are referred for testing and advised to quarantine for 14 days from the date of last exposure. For both cases and close contacts, public health staff will monitor their health status and compliance with disease control measures and connect them to local resources as necessary.

o JCPHS staff will need information about different areas within the school, who was in the area at a given time, and/or locating information for identified children or staff associated with the facility. JCPHS may need to interview teachers, school staff, bus drivers, students etc…

· Alert contacts of their exposure, assess their symptoms and risk, and provide instructions for next steps. The named contacts will be told of their potential exposure to COVID-19, but the person to whom they were exposed will not be named.

· Link those with symptoms to testing and care.