This week showed no slowing in the COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday December 3, 2020 over 2800 people in the USA died from COVID-19; it was our deadliest day yet. It used to be someone could honestly say “I don’t know anyone who has it”; unfortunately now that is not a statement many can make. We are hearing multiple times a day from our members regarding employees, customers, family members of employees, and vendors testing positive and the question that follows is “what do we do now?” We are glad to say we have the answers to help members through this and when we don’t we get them for you.
Up Your Game
Many members have recently “upped their game”. If they were doing screening some of the time or wearing masks some of the time they are reaching out to us to get brought up to speed on the state guidelines, sending memos to employees regarding the changes and doing their best to slow the spread. Unfortunately though as many as we hear are doing a good job or making changes there are still members out there that are not taking the state guidelines seriously; employees are not wearing masks, social distancing is not happening, and other employees or customers are not feeling safe.
| Still not sure if your business is following the correct protocols? Check out the NHADA Covid Playbook for important information. |
Step Up, Take Initiative
We need to do better. We need to set an example for our employees, our customers, and we need to keep people safe. The domino effect of one positive case in the workplace is alarming; when you have to look at how many people had close contact with the positive person and then need to send people home the effect on your business is overwhelming. We have some control on adherence to the guidelines while employees are at work; after everyone goes home for the day though everything falls on the person to continue to make safe choices and not take part in risky behavior such as gathering in large groups of people, not wearing masks or social distancing. Encouraging your employees adherence to the guidelines both at work and personally is a respectable thing to do.
On 12/3/2020 the State of NH made a change to the guidelines for quarantine. Specifically the time frame – see the below excerpt from the update:
NH Division of Public Health Services (DPHS) is decreasing the required quarantine period for people potentially exposed to COVID-19 from 14 to 10 days, which is consistent with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) new quarantine guidance: o A person who is close contact to another person infectious with COVID-19 must stay home and away from public locations for 10 days starting from the last day of exposure to the infectious person.
- A person who has traveled outside of New England must stay home and away from public locations for 10 days starting from the last day of travel outside of New England
- Any person who ends quarantine after 10 days must still monitor themselves daily for symptoms of COVID-19 and strictly adhere to all recommended non-pharmaceutical interventions (social distancing, avoiding social gatherings, face mask use, hand hygiene, etc.) for a full 14 days after last potential exposure or high-risk travel. Any person who develops symptoms should immediately isolate and seek testing.
NH DPHS does not recommend the test out option in the CDC updates. NH recognizes our current testing resources are not sufficiently available to adopt this approach.
NHADA continues to be here for our members during this challenging time. As always please reach out if we can be of assistance.
