I have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. What should I do?
If you are identified as a close contact to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 and if you are fully vaccinated, monitor for symptoms for 14 days and get tested within three to five days of the close contact. You do not need to quarantine as long as you remain asymptomatic.
If you are not fully vaccinated, you should get tested and should quarantine for 10 days, assuming you remain asymptomatic, and monitor your symptoms for another four days. Reminder: a negative test during a quarantine period does not end the need to complete the quarantine period.
If you test positive, stay home to isolate. Please do not come to campus (except for a medical appointment at Cutler Health Center based on your symptoms). Following CDC guidelines, employees and students can return to on-site work and classes on campus if they completed 10 days of self-isolation from the onset of symptoms and 24 hours with no fever without the use of fever-reducing medications, and other symptoms of COVID-19 (with the exception of loss of taste or smell) are improving.
Submit a self-report form. That will initiate university-based contact tracing. Stay close to your phone; a contact tracer will be calling you within 24 hours. And open the lines of communication with those you know are your close contacts — your roommate or classmate, your coworker, etc. Also notify the faculty member of your in-person class or your workplace supervisor. A CDC fact sheet on proactive steps for stopping the spread of COVID-19 includes how to communicate with your close contacts if you test positive.