Community Health and Prevention

When a new illness is circulating, it’s natural for people to ask what they can do to protect themselves and their families. For our community health actions to be effective, we need all community members to do their part by staying at home as much as possible during the school closure. Our best prevention guidance is:

  • Practice social isolation—only leaving home as necessary.
  • Avoid large social gatherings.
  • Cover coughs/sneezes with tissues, or cough/sneeze into the inner elbow.
  • Practice proper hand washing with soap and water, as often as possible. Use warm water, with soap, scrub for 20 seconds, rinse and dry.
  • Use alcohol-based hand sanitizers ONLY if soap and water are not available.

What We Know About COVID-19: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a strain that is part of a large family of coronaviruses that usually cause mild respiratory illnesses, such as the ‘common cold’. COVID-19 is a disease caused by a new coronavirus that was not previously identified in humans before December 2019.

 

Quarantine and Isolation: Patients with COVID-19 have had mild to severe respiratory illness with symptoms of fever, cough, and shortness of breath. It can take between 2 to 14 days after a person gets the virus in their body to become (outwardly) ill.

If you think you have been exposed to COVID-19, and develop a fever and symptoms of respiratory illness, such as cough or difficulty breathing, call your healthcare provider immediately. Your healthcare provider can assess whether a test for COVID-19 is required. Depending on your contact and/or travel history, you will be asked to stay home for 14 days from the time you had contact with a positive or presumptive positive person.

During the isolation period, you should not have visitors in the location where you are isolating. If you must share living quarters with another person, then that person will be subject to quarantine as well. As noted above, we are asking students not to congregate and to remain as isolated as possible within their families as they can so assist in slowing the virus spread.

 If you have any questions, please reach out to your school nurse, or Katie Vozeolas, Director of Health and Nursing Services (kvozeolas@haverhill-ps.org).