I was exposed to Covid this week through work. I am fully Vaxxed. Work said don't quarantine.

[crimsonandclover]

I work for a home agency that takes care of the aged. One of the workers that I relieved had it, still had antibodies and treated herself with Ivermectin. The agency won't tell me who it was due to legal issues and said I was exposed no more than 10 minutes at the most. The other care giver was masked.

I think it was bullshit they are just now disclosing this and they still allow unvaxxed people to work as caregivers. I also don't buy that they can't disclose who it was so I can recall my interaction with her

This agency begs people to come to work for them. It is national and they can't get enough caregivers to cover all the shifts they have. I have an attorney on speed dial.

[Tetrachloride]

1. Go get a PCR immediately. Quarantine yourself for 1-2 days

if you have to pay for the test, make the company pay for it immediately. Don’t come to work until they do, assuming you are owed.

[ShazamIam]

2. Good question, here is the CDC guidelines link.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html

Quarantine
Quarantine if you have been in close contact (within 6 feet of someone for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period) with someone who has COVID-19, unless you have been fully vaccinated. People who are fully vaccinated do NOT need to quarantine after contact with someone who had COVID-19 unless they have symptoms. However, fully vaccinated people should get tested 3-5 days after their exposure, even if they don’t have symptoms and wear a mask indoors in public for 14 days following exposure or until their test result is negative.

[Haggard Celine]

3. Unvaxed people should not be caregivers,

especially of the aged and others who are immune compromised. This is bullshit! I have a feeling you're going to need that attorney.

[ShazzieB]

11. Absolutely not!

I don't want any unvaxxed plague rats anywhere near me, and the idea of one coming to my house to take care of me is like



Same thing if I'm sick in a hospital. So much nope!

[Pisces]

4. Wear a kn95 mask for the quarantine time to make sure you don't have it

[Meowmee]

5. Were you masked and are you vaccinated? I assume so...

Test to be sure and quarantine etc. if not vaccinated it is obviously more of a risk. We went through a similar thing recently at a post acute care facility. Non vaxed employees, one employee tested pos and 3 patients/residents had symptoms. They told us different multiple stories about it. Long story, but none of us contracted it. We are now at a micu where there are covid patients across the hall. We wear kn95 masks everywhere even if not required.

[elias7]

6. You have a right to know who exposed you and in what manner

A home agency that works with the elderly should absolutely be 100% vaxxed, and those being cared for and those interacting (like yourself) with non-vaxxed individuals have an absolute right to know what their exposure has been. This is not a HIPAA violation since no health care professional is divulging info about one of their patients.

You have every right to be pissed and the company you’re working for is not being responsible. But it’s not like it’s a life or death issue….

[totodeinhere]

7. If you are fully vaccianted and were wearing a mask, I don't think that ten minutes

of exposure is much to worry about. Of course you should take all of the prescribed precautions, but don't stress over it.

[vanlassie]

17. But who says it was only ten minutes? Wouldn't you want to verify for yourself?

I would never trust the word of a non-vaxxer!

[Ms. Toad]

22. Not just unvaccinated people, but also vaccinated people reluctant to wear masks.

I've been exposed 4 times recently (3 by vaccinated people).

One of those vaccinated people told the contact tracers he had not been in close contact with anyone.

We caught him unmasked (against school policy) huddled with another unmasked student at the beginning of the day. He was in our classroom for 6 hours, sitting within 6' of 4 people AND has spent the lunch hour indoors, unmasked, with ~ 90 of hie soon to be classmates (almost certainly within 6' of at least a dozen. So I had to spend several hours reconstructing (to the extent we could) who he had exposed.

[totodeinhere]

23. The OP said that the agency indicated the exposure was no more than ten minutes.

I said of course you should take all precautions but don't stress out. I don't see how you can have a problem with that advice. Stress and worry over this situation won't help. Just take the necessary precautions for someone in that situation, then move on.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guideline for defining a close contact of an infected person is fifteen minutes or more.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/public-health-recommendations.html

[vanlassie]

24. The agency who is responsible for insuring guidelines are kept?

The ones who apparently didn’t supervise well enough to avoid having this happen? That is who you think should get sole say?

[totodeinhere]

26. Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say they should get exclusive say.

The poster asked who said it was a ten minute exposure and I answered the agency did. I was just quoting from the OP. I didn't say whether the agency should be believed or not.

[tclambert]

8. Fully vaccinated doesn't mean the virus can't stick to you.

It doesn't set up an invisible force field around you. The vaccine means your immune system is primed to fight off the virus that gets inside you, hopefully before you get sick. However, there is still a small chance that you could spread the virus during the short time between your exposure and your immune system killing it off.

[Orrex]

9. In large part, businesses are driving the current wave of covid

They've been pushing the "return to normalcy" bullshit very hard, hard enough that the fuckhead anti-maskers/anti-vaxers are more than happy to jump on board and gaslight every person who's trying to behave responsibly.

Businesses are absolutely terrified of losing their stranglehold on workers, requiring them to be on-site rather than remote for no reason other than to control the employees and, incidentally, to justify the existence of 50% of management or more.

I sympathize with you. I'm happy to report that my company gets this much right; someone with exposure risk is told to stay home pending test results.

I'm sorry that they've forced you into this position.

[Zeitghost]

19. Stockholders

Don't give a shit about management. If the BoD felt they could fire half the management and still maintain efficiency they would do so in a heartbeat.

[Orrex]

21. Maybe, maybe not

Multiple studies have shown that employee efficiency & productivity increased while they were working from home, in addition to the secondary cost savings (e.g., employees not flushing office toilets hundreds of times per day, not using office electricity, not drinking office-provided coffee, etc.), yet these companies still dragged their employees back into the office.

If, as you suggest, it's all about efficiency, then how is this explained?

We're speaking, of course, about "white collar" jobs that for all practical purposes don't require a body in a cube in the office, rather than hands-on labor that obviously can't be performed remotely.

[FakeNoose]

10. Insurance companies must clamp down on this nonsense

Your company managers (I know this is NOT your fault) are being totally irresponsible. It's not OK to willingly expose someone else to Covid, for any reason. You might be vaccinated and therefore safe, but you don't know anyone else's status. Maybe they're immuno-compromised. When dealing with elderly patients, you can almost assume they ARE immuno-compromised.

Sooner or later your company's failure to use caution and follow the Covid guidelines will lead to someone's death. Then there will be lawsuits. Does your company have the liability insurance to cover $ millions in payouts for their negligence? Maybe you don't know the answer, but you'll find out when they shut down and lay everybody off. I hope it doesn't come to that, but you never know.

Consider this: maybe you're an independent contract, not a direct employee of this company. If that's the case, maybe YOU (not the company) will be held liable if one of your patients catches Covid and dies. Do you want to lose your house and everything you own because of a negligence lawsuit? I doubt it.

[Corgigal]

12. Could be replicating in your nasal passages,

unknown if you can spread. You probably won’t get it into the deep organs.

I don’t know, I would ask an infectious disease doctor. It’s all about timing.

[Jon King]

13. CDC guidelines, get a test but do not quarantine.

The employer in this case is correct. In this scenario, the length of contact is not a factor. Get a test 3-5 days after exposure.

The only thing an attorney could do would be to ask the employer to pay for the test but the cost of the test would be a small claims court matter, not really worth an attorney.

Besides asking for the date of exposure so the test could be given within the 3-5 day period, the employer has no legal obligation to the other employee. If the employer did not make the disclosure within 3-5 days, then the employee got Covid, now you might have a case. But as any attorney will tell you, the judge asks one main question, what are your actual damages? If you can prove these damages to the court, great.

The employee would not disclose who the employee was because that would be against medical privacy laws. If the case was big enough the court could find out, but that is not likely in this scenario.

As to whether a home care aide should be unvaxxed? I agree, thats ridiculous.

[vanlassie]

18. What medical privacy laws? Not HIPPA. Does not apply.

[fescuerescue]

25. Hipaa doesn't apply but at the same time

There is no law that requires the employer name the person with Covid.

Employers have a long long case history of nuissance lawsuits that have taught them that handing over personal information of others has no upside, but potential downside.

[liberalla]

14. You might figure out who it was if someone was out sick with symptoms of an

Ivermectin overdose.


only half kidding...

[GusBob]

15. You have an attorney on speed dial?

Why

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. For me the genuinely scariest thing is that the worker

treated herself with Ivermectin. Really? And she's still walking around? I do hope she politely does not go to a hospital if she actually gets sick.

We are long past the point where very single health care worker of any kind, wherever they work, should be fully vaccinated.

[hamsterjill]

20. Have the aged who were being cared for by this person been told?

They should be told who it was and so should you.