In the interest of individual privacy, it’s important to not share information about particular cases unless instructed to do so. When a UW community member is diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, the relevant local health department and the UW initiate appropriate protocols to protect the health of anyone deemed to be at risk.
If you have a person within your department who is symptomatic and/or believes they have been exposed to COVID-19, please do the following:
- Direct the impacted individual to call their doctor (or Hall Health if a student) for appropriate medical treatment and/or testing.
- Direct the individual to contact Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) for appropriate support and screening. (Note that it’s important for EH&S to speak with the individual directly). emphlth@uw.edu or 206.685.1026
- EH&S will perform a risk assessment and follow-up with appropriate guidance. If an individual is determined to be medium or high risk for COVID-19 or if the individual is determined presumed positive, EH&S will coordinate with the UW on appropriate operations and communication guidance and next steps. Units/departments should not send broad communications about individual cases until they have this guidance.
- The University will not send all-campus or unit messages for every case. As testing increases and more individuals are identified, localized mitigation responses will likely increase in frequency, as will the number of individuals who test negative. Positive cases will be posted at uw.edu/coronavirus for full transparency.
Many departments maintain various list serves to communicate with faculty, staff, and students. In the interest of privacy, we encourage all departments to use discretion and moderate messages about presumed or confirmed cases of COVID-19 as they may contain sensitive personal information. As noted above, faculty, staff and students in departments should not send broad communications unless they have guidance from EH&S.
EH&S would like to know about all presumptive positive or positive cases even if the person has not been on campus recently. Identities are closely protected and shared on a need-to-know basis. Information on positive cases is extremely helpful to EH&S as they coordinate with local public health officials and determine the scope of infection among members of the UW community.