Hastings Prince Edward Public Health wants all residents to be aware of enhanced screening, testing, and isolation requirements in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially with the rise of more contagious variants.
The Ministry of Health has updated three key processes across the province effective immediately.
New daily screening requirements for children attending school and daycare means if even one symptom of the virus is present (not related to existing medical condition), the child should be tested.
- Household members must isolate until child receives negative test result. If testing is recommended and not completed, child must isolate for 10 days following symptom onset and household members must isolate for 14 days following symptom onset.
- If household members are unable to isolate from child, they must isolate for 24 days following the child’s symptom onset (child’s isolation period plus 14 days isolation for household member).
Household members of individuals who are experiencing symptoms of the virus must isolate until the symptomatic individual receives negative test results or an alternative diagnosis from a health care provider.
- If the symptomatic individual is not tested, they must isolate for 10 days from symptom onset. All household members must isolate for 14 days from their last contact with the symptomatic individual.
- If the symptomatic individual cannot isolate from the rest of the household, all household members must quarantine for 14 days from the end of the symptomatic individual’s isolation period.
Household members of high-risk contacts of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, must avoid any non-essential outings or gatherings for the duration of the high-risk contact’s isolation period.
- This means only leaving home for essential reasons such as attending work or school or childcare, doing errands for food and medication, or attending essential medical appointments.
Dr. Oglaza says the good news is testing results don’t take long.
“Turn around time for testing is very fast in our region. We have ample capacity to do testing through our community assessment centres so that test result will be within 24 hours most of the time.”
Read the press release from HPEPH here.
