County Health Department Provides Explanations For Terms Used During Pandemic
Wall Of Water Fundraiser Planned
The Wolf Point 100 Club will be holding a fundraiser drawing Aug. 14. Wolf Point 100 Club board members Cindy Hanks, Dave Fyfe and Tammy Bartel pose by the branded water they had hoped to sell at various events during 2020, the 40th anniversary of the Wolf Point 100 Club. Visit the organization’s Facebook page for more information.
During this COVID-19 pandemic, words are used in the media, on the street, and in our homes that are usually reserved for communicable disease investigators. Hopefully these terms will become more clear with the provision of their CDC definitions and use in an example scenario.
Confirmed COVID-19 Case: Report of person with COVID-19 and meeting confirmatory laboratory evidence.
Case Investigation and Contact Tracing: Fundamental activities that involve working with a patient who has been diagnosed with an infectious disease to identify and provide support to people (contacts) who may have been infected through exposure to the patient. This process prevents further transmission of disease by separating people who have (or may have) an infectious disease from people who do not.
Close Contact: Someone who was within 6 feet of an infectious person for at least 15 minutes starting from 2 days before illness onset, or 2 days prior to an asymptomatic person testing positive.
Isolation: The separation of a person or group of people known or reasonably believed to be infected with a COVID-19 and potentially infectious from those who are not infected to prevent spread of COVID-19.
Quarantine: The separation of a person or group of people reasonably believed to have been exposed to COVID-19 but not yet symptomatic
(Submitted photo)
from others who have not been exposed to prevent the possible spread of COVID-19.
These are the most basic of definitions. Individual situations are often not clear-cut and require considering other factors.
Hoping that this will be helpful to the public, the following is a scenario using the terms in context: Sue develops a fever and cough at 8 a.m. on the 13th and gets tested for COVID-19. She would have been told to quarantine herself at home until she receives the test results, leaving only for medical purposes.
She receives the test result on the 14th and isolates herself at home again leaving only for the purpose of obtaining medical care.
Case investigation and contact tracing will determine that only those people who spent a minimum of 15 minutes within 6 feet of Sue on or after the 11th and the 12th are close contacts.
If Betty spent 2 hours with Sue on the 9th, she is not a close contact because Sue wasn’t infectious then. Not everyone who has been around Sue lately is a close contact. And people who have been around Betty are not contacts at all.
Jan, however, spent 2 hours studying with Sue on the 12th while sitting across a table from each other. Jan is named a close contact and advised to quarantine herself at home for 14 days.
As a close contact, Jan will be tested. If the test is positive, Jan is a new confirmed case of COVID-19, she isolates at home, is interviewed and her contacts will be named and tested.
If the test is negative, she will continue to quarantine at home until 14 days since her last exposure. It is possible that she may yet show symptoms up to 14 days from the last time she was exposed.
