Clearly, this event poses a high risk to your team. The one 62 person wedding in Maine that has been all over the news now has a case count of 170 with 8 deaths tied to it. You’ll need to consult your legal counsel. But this is one that may need clear communication and employees told they may need to be excluded for 14 days if they attend.
We didn’t… We expect this will be evolving over the coming weeks and months. But for now, the guidance remains that antibodies post-positive are lasting 90 days or more. We do see studies showing that they wane over time and are reduced by as much as half in 60 days. As we learn more about this and new studies come out, we’ll be sharing them.
A false positive is much more rare than a false negative for COVID tests. And the lab-based PCR tests have a much lower false positive rate than the rapid ones. We would absolutely suggest excluding this employee for ten days from the first test date.
There is definitely significant risk and potential liability by not excluding.
Great question and one that came up over and over again today! The answer is no. If the Roommate #1 develops symptoms or test positive, then Roommate #2 would need to be excluded. This is a variation of the second-hand contact scenario you’ve asked about many times before…
Although that is a legal question you should review with your counsel, nearly all of our clients and our clinical team are asking for a copy of the positive result, a screenshot of a positive result they received by text or the caller ID from whomever called them to verbally report a positive. We’re getting it 95% of the time. When someone tells us they don’t have a copy, can’t get one, deleted the text, etc. we occasionally find out that they didn’t actually test positive.
Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, says only about 1 to 2 percent of people who get a flu shot will have fever as a side effect. Any fever correlated with a flu shot should be below 100.4 degrees. If someone has a fever of 100.4 or higher, it’s likely unrelated to their flu shot. If they did recently get a flu shot and have body aches, soreness at the injection site, or a fever under 100.4, we recommend keeping them out for 3 days to monitor their symptoms. If symptoms resolve they can return after 3 days if they are 24-hours fever-free without fever-reducing medication.
It’s been a while since we suggested you listen to our friend, Dr. Mike Osterholm. But this week’s podcast will really bring you up to date on the worldwide spread of COVID, vaccination development, which young people are getting and spreading COVID and how.
