‘Tips from a Covid-19 Case Investigator’ Archives
Safer Way to Travel
Safer Ways to Celebrate Holidays By the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Holiday traditions are important for families and children. There are several ways to enjoy holiday traditions and protect your health. Because many generations tend to gather to celebrate holidays, the best way to minimize COVID-19 risk and keep your family and friends safer is to get vaccinated if you’re eligible. Here are safer ways to celebrate the holidays: Generally: Protect those not yet eligible for vaccination such as young children by getting yourself and other eligible people around them vaccinated.Wear well-fitting masks over your nose and mouth if you are in public indoor settings if you are not fully vaccinated.Even those who are fully vaccinated should wear a mask in public indoor settings in communities with substantial to high transmission.Outdoors is safer than indoors. Avoid crowded, poorly ventilated spaces.If you are sick or have symptoms, don’t host or attend [...]
COVID-19 Back to School
By LINDSEY FENNER It”™s September, which means kids are back in school! But with the Delta variant spreading in MN, and kids under 12 unable to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, sending your kids to school this year might feel really scary. Although the new variant is much more contagious, the good news is that all of the COVID-19 precautions we”™re already using are still effective against the Delta variant. We have so many tools to use! But it is important to remember that there isn”™t just one thing to do; we need to layer up these interventions to keep our kids healthy. Read your school”™s COVID-19 plan. Ask questions if there”™s something you don”™t understand.Surround your kids under 12 with vaccinated adults. Every vaccinated person helps to weaken the chain of transmission, and protect unvaccinated folks.Get your kids over 12 vaccinated. Although they are less likely to get severely ill, they can still get [...]
Reflections From a Former COVID-19 Case Investigator
By LINDSEY FENNER After over a year working in public health as a pandemic responder, I am back doing my pre-pandemic work. And although this doesn”™t mean the pandemic is over, it does mean this column is at an end. I started writing it because I wanted people to have something to hold onto within the swirl of pandemic uncertainty and anxiety. I realized very quickly that no matter what my job description was on paper, what I was really doing was struggling with people through uncertainty. My job was to listen, to talk through complicated realities that didn”™t fit neatly into a box, to help people who were sick make decisions when there wasn”™t a clear correct choice. And now, after my job is over, what is there to say about what we have all been through together? We are all connected. Which is nothing new, but doing this work meant relearning that every single day. In my role doing case investigation/epidemiology we called people [...]
