Otselic Valley Central School District

PROVIDED BY: MRS. STACIE MORSE, RN ABOUT: COVID-19 contacts FROM: Chenango County Health Department To help address questions about COVID-19 regarding contacts: WHAT IS A CONTACT? A close contact is defined as someone who was within 6 feet of a positive case patient for a long period of time (at least 15 minutes or more) or had direct contact with secretions via cough, sneeze, or speaking.  Additionally, this may include persons with direct physical contact with a confirmed case or direct care for a patient with confirmed COVID-19 disease without using proper protective equipment.  An infected person can spread COVID-19 starting from 48 hours (or 2 days) before the person has any symptoms or tests positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. Contacts to a positive care are notified that they may have been exposed after the initial interview takes place and asked to quarantine for a certain amount of time.  To protect the privacy of the individual, the Health Department cannot release identifying information of the positive person to others.  Approximately 53% of those contacts directly exposed to a positive case become positive themselves. A “contact to a contact” is NOT a case and is not quarantined.  There is very low risk involved with this group.  If you are a “contact to a contact” if is very unlikely that you will become ill and there is no need to quarantine.  This is partially due to the timing of the virus spread and when a person is contagious.  A “contact to a contact” did not have actual exposure to a positive case. For more information go to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html