Current as of December 3, 2020

- • Contact” is “someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative • Contact” is “someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to test specimen collection) until the time the person is isolated.”
- • who begin feeling sick during the day should immediately go home. • who begin feeling sick during the day should immediately go home.
- • the ideal situation for an employee who is feeling sick is to get a COVID-19 test, • the ideal situation for an employee who is feeling sick is to get a COVID-19 test, there is nothing more critical than ensuring that the potential positive employee self- isolate—staying away from people is the only way to avoid transmission to others.

## Contact Trace

If you have an employee who has tested positive or is presumed positive, you will want to contact trace to determine if anyone has had direct exposure to the employee. Contact tracing is essentially detective work. The idea is to track down anyone in recent direct contact with a newly diagnosed employee (or person with symptoms) and then monitor the health of these contacts.

Privacy is key:

- • contact tracing does not require that the sick person’s identity be disclosed. The • contact tracing does not require that the sick person’s identity be disclosed. The process is simply to contact people listed as potentially infected (as list you should receive immediately from the person who tested positive) and ask them about symptoms, without saying who might have transmitted the virus to them.
- • also might involve a letter to employees or customers that people diagnosed with • also might involve a letter to employees or customers that people diagnosed with COVID-19 had been in the workplace and they may have been exposed. They should be asked to self-quarantine and reach out to either their doctor or a public health official for testing.
- • are obligated under federal, and under some state laws, to protect the • are obligated under federal, and under some state laws, to protect the information and use it only for public health purposes. This is why automated tracing, using technology like Bluetooth and GPS, has become appealing.
- o tracing raises concerns regarding medical privacy and we anticipate seeing o tracing raises concerns regarding medical privacy and we anticipate seeing claims regarding this issue coming out of the pandemic.
- o privacy advocates and civil liberties campaigners have valid concerns. o privacy advocates and civil liberties campaigners have valid concerns. Contact tracing is a form of surveillance that, in the worst case, can be abused by companies or governments.

COVID-19 complicates things further because the infectiousness of the coronavirus has not been firmly established, meaning even chance encounters have to be included in the potential spread. For example, some studies have shown the COVID-19 can travel farther than the 6 feet generally agreed upon as the social distancing standard, if the sick person is coughing or sneezing. Thus, employers should ask: “Do you recall coughing or sneezing while talking with this person?” and the same should be asked of the person exposed. These can be difficult conversations to have with employees.