Frustrated!!

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Are any of you having an issue with your HD contradicting the guidelines on quarantine and isolation dates?  Here the "rule" is a minimum of 10 days isolation after symptoms start and if you have had close contact, then you get to quarantine for 14 days from last contact.  Pretty straight forward I think, however I am getting conflicting dates from the health department.  Also, we were told that a person must quarantine for a minimum of 24 days if they are quarantining in the same house as the isolated person (14 days after last contact with the person contagious for 10 days).  This "rule" is not being followed at all.  Why are some HDs not sticking to the rules?  Frustrating.

   

Specializes in Peds.
On 12/3/2020 at 3:12 PM, AdobeRN said:

I started with the 10+14 day thing for students at beginning of the year - then district started to get push back from everyone and we were then told if parent tells us that positive person is completed isolated from others we only need to quarantine any close contacts for 14 days - so since September pretty much all close contacts are quarantined now for 14 days - nobody seems to have a problem with this including our local county Health department that has the 10+14 thing plastered all over their website and documents.  It is so frustrating sometimes when the rules are clear as mud. 

So wrong!  Why are we being asked to bend rules for this when it comes to staff.  This could man life or death!

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Specializes in kids.

A kid ID'd as a close contact (14 d Q at the time) hops on a plane to a warm climate.☀️

Teachers don't want these sick kids in their rooms but  stay all day when THEY have sx

Teachers calls to ? why a kid is out -"I think may be milking it" the same teacher who is "scared to death of kids putting her in contact with this awful illness'' 

The parent who has multiple kids and diddles around with getting everyone tested therefore the while household is in an never ending Q.

I cannot make this ish up

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Specializes in School nursing.
1 hour ago, NutmeggeRN said:

A kid ID'd as a close contact (14 d Q at the time) hops on a plane to a warm climate.☀️

Teachers don't want these sick kids in their rooms but  stay all day when THEY have sx

Teachers calls to ? why a kid is out -"I think may be milking it" the same teacher who is "scared to death of kids putting her in contact with this awful illness'' 

The parent who has multiple kids and diddles around with getting everyone tested therefore the while household is in an never ending Q.

I cannot make this ish up

Oh I know you can't.

Also some folks afraid to be in classroom I've seen photos of them dining in a restaurant indoors. 

I just sigh a lot more these days. 

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Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.

I had to sub today for my nurse in one of my schools and we had a positive. I had to send 5 kids home today... so much paperwork. Then I was doing it wrong, so I had to redo my paperwork like 5 times today. The protocols are so confusing! 

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Specializes in Peds.
15 hours ago, Amethya said:

I had to sub today for my nurse in one of my schools and we had a positive. I had to send 5 kids home today... so much paperwork. Then I was doing it wrong, so I had to redo my paperwork like 5 times today. The protocols are so confusing! 

5 is lucky!  I have been sending 15 and 20 home at a time.  Awful!

19 hours ago, JenTheSchoolRN said:

Oh I know you can't.

Also some folks afraid to be in classroom I've seen photos of them dining in a restaurant indoors. 

I just sigh a lot more these days. 

Yes!  I have teachers teaching virtually because they are afraid of the building and still posting pictures of them at huge parties and weddings!

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On 12/7/2020 at 8:52 AM, cowboysandangels said:

So wrong!  Why are we being asked to bend rules for this when it comes to staff.  This could man life or death!

We have also just changed our policy to follow the new CDC suggestions - from 14 day quarantine for close contacts to 10 days.  Thankfully we are not doing the other half of the changes about testing negative after day 5 and returning day 7 due to the high number of cases in our area.  It will be interesting to see how all this plays out in the next few months.  

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Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.
On 12/8/2020 at 6:49 AM, cowboysandangels said:

5 is lucky!  I have been sending 15 and 20 home at a time.  Awful!

Yes!  I have teachers teaching virtually because they are afraid of the building and still posting pictures of them at huge parties and weddings!

That many? That's horrible! 

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Specializes in School nursing.

Sign. Venting on this thread. Not really venting, but just tired and typing ?.

Close contact determination stinks. I'm airing always on the side of caution, but honestly staff and children aren't perfect. Any time a teacher and a student has 1:1 time apart from the monitored classroom setting (that I can track much, much better) that is more than 15 minutes, I consider them both a close contact. 

This was my call and it is a supported one by admin, but I have to explain to a parent that despite the fact that we are following CDC protocols, I'm still asking you to quarantine your child for 10 days. And right now, any quarantine takes you into Christmas. Also the guessing game of who and and hounding. (I get it - you are rightfully an angry parent. But COVID is everywhere right, including at school.)

I'm not mad at myself for this. In fact, I'd feel worse if I didn't do it this way. But UGH.

Also when you are doing surveillance testing and have 5 positives out of 87 tests the week before Thanksgiving is just...a lot.

Hugs to all us school nurses today. 

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.

If you chose to send your kid to school, you took the risk of me sending them home with real or erring-on-the-side-of caution exposures. (I am sure you said it much more nicely). 

And unless that parent doesn't work, nobody in the house works, and they never leave....odds are still that it's community contact.

Hang in there!

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6 minutes ago, ruby_jane said:

If you chose to send your kid to school, you took the risk of me sending them home with real or erring-on-the-side-of caution exposures. (I am sure you said it much more nicely). 

I've had a lot of parents tell me when I have to put their kid on quarantine "Are you kidding me?  I can't believe this happened at school" and it takes everything in me not to clap back "uhh you sent them to school so what did you expect?"

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Specializes in School nursing.

Thanks, @ruby_janeand @Mavnurse17. It was just one of those days and one of those parents and me feeling like I didn't consider their kid a contact and they found I didn't, that can also bit me in the butt.

Also, I meant 5 positives prior to Christmas as a 10 quarantine takes one to the day after Christmas of course.

Thankfully my next surveillance testing date is Jan 4 and we don't have an in person kids again until Jan 6th and today we closed in person learning due to the weather. I may actually get to breathe for a few days. I fully expect positives on Jan 4th though. I'd be shocked if I didn't see any.

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.
28 minutes ago, Mavnurse17 said:

I've had a lot of parents tell me when I have to put their kid on quarantine "Are you kidding me?  I can't believe this happened at school" and it takes everything in me not to clap back "uhh you sent them to school so what did you expect?"

....because it happens with flu and strep and sometimes mono if we're reeeeaaallly lucky every other year......

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