Fever? Chills? Fresno County forces businesses to screen employees to slow coronavirus
With community spread of the coronavirus now present in Fresno County, the county’s Department of Public Health issued a pair of new orders Friday for businesses and medical providers.
Effective immediately, businesses must screen all employees for febrile respiratory illness on a daily basis.
Febrile respiratory illness is defined as “a new worsening episode of either cough or shortness of breath, presenting with fever (100.4 degrees) or chills in the previous 24 hours.”
“Community spread ... that’s obviously the most dire case of an epidemic because it’s the hardest to contain,” said Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County interim health officer. Vohra defined community spread as a COVID-19 category when a person tests positive without having traveled or having no contact with someone who’s tested positive, so it isn’t exactly clear how the person contracted the virus.
“But (community spread),” Vohra added, “it’s also the one where the general public has the most impact that they can make. And that’s really just to protect yourself.”
Businesses are required to exclude any employees who report symptoms of febrile respiratory illness from work for seven days from the day that they are identified as having symptoms.
And businesses must direct employees who’ve been excluded from work to isolate at home and to notify all close contacts to quarantine themselves for 14 days from the last known contact with the patient.
“We know that this virus is contagious and it really benefits from crowds and crowded places and from people being close to one another,” Vohra said. “So anything we can do to help spread ourselves out and to help minimize any inessential and unnecessary social interactions will actually minimize the chance that this virus spreads to our population.”
In addition, health care providers will report on a daily basis to the public health branch of the Health and Human services agency all patients seen in their practice with a febrile respiratory illness.
Health care providers also will require patient information to include demographic information, including age, as well as residential address and clinical status, indicate whether rapid point of care testing was performed and their results, and indicate if COVID-19 testing was done.
And patients, if no exclusionary diagnosis is found, will be directed to quarantine for seven days after onset of symptoms or three days after cessation of fever without the use of fever-reducing medication. They also must notify all close contacts to quarantine themselves for 14 days from the last known contact with the patent.
“I’d like to reiterate that same message that I’ve shared before,” Vohra said. “Because I really feel like it’s our best shot and perhaps our only shot in beating this epidemic without having a lot of lives lost. And that is the message of social distancing.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 7:41 PM.
