In this episode, Dr. Kelly discusses the current framework for responding to an outbreak involving a single person infected with a communicable respiratory illness. She discusses the need for close contact tracing and the need to prevent and manage outbreaks.
00:00:00.000And again, it's important to remember that a diagnosis of COVID-19 is not necessary and what is important about these responses is that they look at the groups of people who have illness that's compatible with COVID-19.
00:00:13.960And so our current framework that does not require mandatory quarantine, does not require close contact tracing, means that disclosure of individually identifying health information, as would happen if individual case notifications happened in schools, would be a violation of an individual's, again, privacy and their rights under the Health Information Act.
00:00:38.340So we do have that framework where schools, if they see that there are an increased number of children who are ill because of respiratory illness, again, or teachers or staff, they can work with Alberta Health Services.
00:00:52.160And in some ways, that is adding an additional layer of protection because if individuals choose to not get tested for COVID but are home with an illness, they're now counted in the list as being part of that outbreak.
00:01:07.380And so it's less dependent on needing a test to be a part of identifying where there is an issue.
00:01:14.540But there are no other settings right now, aside from continuing care and acute care, as locations where there's a significant risk of transmission and severe outcomes if there should be an outbreak.
00:01:37.300In those settings, we are ensuring that follow-up takes place to mitigate and to manage outbreaks.