Parishville-Hopkinton Central School

Contact Tracing Plan

Contact tracing will be conducted by the Department of Health to limit the community spread of COVID-19. The Parishville-Hopkinton Central School District has taken steps to make contact tracing easier for Public Health workers. PHCS will keep a log of any visitors to the school building, which includes the individual’s name, the time they arrived and left, their intended destination in the building, and their phone number which may be provided to Public Health officials for contact tracing purposes.

• PHCS has activated our swipe in system to ensure that employees use their issued badges/fobs to “swipe in” to gain access to the building so that a timestamped record of entry is maintained.Tracing will be conducted by Public Health for close contacts (any individual within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes) of laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients.  All visitors to the school building must log in and out of the building. The log will include: the included the individual’s name, the time they arrived and left, their intended destination in the building, and their phone number, which may be provided to Public Health officials for contact tracing purposes.
  
  

• Tracing functions in the following ways:

  • For COVID-19, a close contact is defined as any individual who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to positive specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated.

  • The public health evaluation of close contacts to patients with laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 may vary depending on the exposure setting. Contacts in special populations and/or congregate settings require additional considerations and may need handoff to a senior health department investigator or special team.

  • Remote communications for the purposes of case investigation and contact tracing should be prioritized; in-person communication may be considered only after remote options have been exhausted.

  • Testing is recommended for all close contacts of confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients.

  • Those contacts who test positive (symptomatic or asymptomatic) should be managed as a confirmed COVID-19 case.

  • Asymptomatic contacts testing negative should self-quarantine for 14 days from their last exposure (i.e., close encounter with confirmed or probable COVID-19 case)

  • If testing is not available, symptomatic close contacts should self-isolate and be managed as a probable COVID-19 case.

  • If testing is not available, asymptomatic close contacts should self-quarantine and be monitored for 14 days after their last exposure, with linkage to clinical care for those who develop symptoms.