Join Roslyn Stone from ZHH, Traci Slowinski from McDonald’s, and Shelly Wallingford from First Watch discussing norovirus with NEHA.
Hope to see you there on Thursday, March 7th at 12pm Eastern (9 am Pacific).
https://neha.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqduGhpj0uE90pXzBnZbGGnD45jZrBaFXB#/registration
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The new CDC guidelines for when to stay home while sick with respiratory illness are totally symptoms-based, and aren’t different for a positive test anymore. Whether yout test positive for COVID or flu or RSV, or notably, even if you don’t, the guidelines are the same and based on what symptoms you’re having. Ultimately, CDC says that employees can return to work after testing positive for COVID if their symptoms are improving and they have been fever-free for 24 hours without meds. The new guidelines do suggest that those people wear masks for at least 5 days along with other precautionary measures including increasing ventilation and airflow and physical distancing. In order to make these recommendations actionable for businesses, we recommend that those with moderate to severe COVID symptoms or a positive COVID, flu or RSV test stay home for 3 days, and can return after that as long as they are fever-free for at least 24 hours without fever-reducing meds, have no respiratory or GI symptoms, and their other symptoms are improving.
We’ve seen this in multiple cases this year. A guest, often an unvaccinated child, enters your business (even for a short period of time) and shortly after they’re diagnosed with measles. The Health Department notifies you that your business will be identified as one of the places that people were exposed, but before you have time to prep a comms plan or talk to your team, it’s all over the local news and city website. There’s some clinical reason for this: if an unvaccinated person can get vaccinated within 72 hours of exposure, they can be protected and don’t need to isolate. It’s also important for the community to be on the lookout for signs of measles and seek prompt medical attention if they or their child has any, especially since measles is incredibly contagious. Rather than focusing on trying to make the health department slow down, we recommend that our clients start preparing now. Work with your PR or Communications team to prepare media talking points (or instructions not to talk to the media), internal team talking points, and an action plan if your business is named as one with measles exposure.
Source: CDC
If you find out that a guest entered your business premises while infectious with measles, you can assume that your name will be on the local news shortly. Act fast to loop in the important players on your team, including Zero Hour Health. Get good information to your team members quickly (their risk is low if they’re vaccinated; ZHH can help with talking points if you need them). Loop in your communications or PR team early to decide how to respond. Remember that you’re likely not the only business this person visited, and there’s very little you’ll actually be able to do to respond from a clinical perspective. Instead, this more about getting out ahead of misinformation or rumors, and reassuring guests and employees alike. If you do have any unvaccinated employees, you should encourage them to get an MMR vaccine as soon as possible - ideally within 72 hours of exposure to protect against measles - and, perhaps more pressing for some workers, to reduce the chances that the health department will require them to stay out of work for 21 days.
Two major health news stories lately ended up tracing back to pet cats: a human plague case and the first known human death from the relatively new Alaskavirus. In both cases, pet cats likely killed a small rodent that was infected with the virus, and then passed it to their owner. Meanwhile, there’s an ongoing Salmonella outbreak linked to small turtles, and another one last year was linked to bearded dragons. Backyard chickens also carry a variety of diseases, including Salmonella. There are steps you can take to prevent getting diseases from your pets. Don’t allow your cats to hunt rodents in the wild, and follow proper wound care if you get scratched. If you have a turtle, bearded dragon, frog, or lizard, know that they often carry harmful bacteria. Wash your hands thoroughly after handling your pets.
Source: CNN