Contact tracing goes hand in hand with testing and is critical to supporting patients with suspected or confirmed infection. For COVID-19, the ability to scale our contact tracing capacity is crucial to slow community spread. Your help is the key to stopping the spread of COVID-19 and protecting your loved ones. If you test positive, you may spread the virus to others without knowing it. Those individuals could then get infected and put their loved ones or co-workers at risk. Please help slow the spread! Christian County has five trained and dedicated contact tracers and just brought two additional tracers on staff that are in training, totaling seven. Positive cases are expanding so quickly in Christian County, they are overwhelming our contact tracing efforts. Additional staffing is currently being brought on board to handle the exploding level of cases. We need the public to take individual responsibility to help mitigate this virus. Patience and cooperation are needed by everyone during this very difficult time. Keep in mind, as a positive case, you will be notified before the local health department is aware of your positive test. The health department receives your test results through an electronic data system. It can take two or more days after you are notified directly before your results are posted in that system. If you are tested and given a positive case diagnosis from a testing site, do not wait for a call from a tracer, you need to immediately take self-responsibility and self-isolate.
Self-isolate (as a positive case) for ten days and be free of fever and your symptoms have improved to be released . Self-isolation means staying at home in a specific room away from other people and pets and using a separate bathroom, if possible. For many, this self-isolation period has been longer than ten days and for those hospitalized, many times it is much longer. If you experience shortness of breath or other medical concerns, immediately seek medical direction from your doctor or report to your local emergency room should you need immediate assistance.When you test positive, we ask you to share with your close contacts anyone you spent 15 minutes cumulative time with or more with over a 24-hour period and were within 6 feet of while you were infectious (2 days before onset) solely for the purpose of allowing them to quarantine to prevent them
from unknowingly infecting others, especially the high-risk populations. Quarantine (as someone who has been exposed to a positive case) requires a fourteen-day quarantine from the last date of exposure. The reason, it may take two to fourteen days for someone to present with the virus after being exposed. If you do not quarantine as needed, you could asymptomatically spread the virus amongst anyone you come in contact with. In most cases, anyone who lives in a home with a positive case will typically be quarantined because of the direct exposure of living in the same home. Again, if you meet the requirement of 15 minutes cumulative time with or more over a 24-hour period and were within 6 feet, you need to take self-responsibility and self-quarantine for fourteen days. Again, do not wait on a call if you meet these requirements noted. Contact tracers will get to you as soon as possible. If you are called by a contact tracer, please answer or immediately call them back.
Trusted Sources and Contact Information:
Chris-Mont EMA PIO: Kevin Schott, Deputy EMA Director, (217)-971-8196 or
kevins@montgomeryco.com
Christian County Public Health:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Christian-County-Health-Department-IL-1897847710292284
Website: http://www.christiancountyhealth.net
P: 217-824-4113, Ext 111
Montgomery County Public Health:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MontgomeryCountyHD/
Web Site: https://montgomeryco.com/health/
P: 217-532-2001
Chris-Mont EMA:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChrisMontEMA/
Website: https://christiancountyil.com/emergency-management/
P: 217-532-9560
Additional trusted sources for facts and information:
State of Illinois Coronavirus (COVID-19) Response: https://coronavirus.illinois.gov/s/
Illinois Department of Public Health: http://dph.illinois.gov/covid19
Centers for Disease Control: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
P: State of Illinois 24/7 COVID Hotline: 1-800-889-3931
