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Human Resources & Staff Management

If I have an employee who has had unprotected exposure to a positive COVID patient, do they have to quarantine for 14 days?

In general, asymptomatic Healthcare providers (HCP) who have had a higher-risk exposure do not require work restriction if they have received all COVID-19 vaccine doses, including booster dose, as recommended by CDC and do not develop symptoms or test positive for COVID. The duration of protection offered by booster doses of vaccine and their effect on emerging variants are not clear; additional updates will be provided as more information becomes available.

Refer to the employee exposure flow chart for more on what to do if an employee is exposed to COVID-19.

The CDC posted new guidelines on December 23, 2021, that shortens the criteria to a maximum of 10 days without testing as opposed to the prior 14 days. Curi has also updated their  flowchart to assist in applying the new criteria.

For employees who have been vaccinated and boosted as recommended by  CDC no work restrictions, as long as employee remains asymptomatic and test remain negative on  days 2 and 5-7. Employees should continue to monitor for symptoms consistent with COVID-19 for 10 days.  If symptoms develop quarantine and test immediately.

If not fully vaccinated and boosted as per CDC recommendations quarantine for 10 days or 7 days with negative test collected within 48 hours of returning to work.

Countdown begins with day of exposure as day 0.

News & Knowledge
All Curi recommendations are based on current CDC criteria at the time of publication. CDC guidance for SARS-CoV-2 infection may, or may not, be adopted by state and local health departments to respond to rapidly changing local circumstances. Providers should always check with their local health department to see if the CDC’s guidance on any given topic has been modified (particularly if more restrictive) from the CDC’s recommended guidelines. Follow this link https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/healthdirectories/index.html for contact information to your state/local health department. If local recommendations vary from those of the CDC, and you are unsure what recommendations to follow, then it is safer to follow the more restrictive guidelines/recommendations.