. @BossletMD and I just finished a 2-week quarantine with a kindergartner after he had a classmate with COVID19.

We made some mistakes and learned some stuff and I thought I would share.

A school quarantine lessons

1/

First, we know what quarantine means. It means no trips to the store for him. No playing with the kids in our bubble family. No going to aunty's for the day.

We did this well, but it is a tall order and impossible for many families with working parents.

2/

We had to scramble to figure out how in the heck we were going to be able to be with him these 2 weeks and with some Herculean schedule manipulation, we were able to do it.

This will be impossible for many families.
3/

The school did a great job. We got a call right away, and a letter from the health department. They were clear on the fact that the quarantine was 14 days regardless of testing.

4/

However, the letter from the @Marion_Health did not instruct us to get him tested- in fact, the wording seemed to dissuade testing.

And the guidance from the @CDCgov has changed on this three times since August. So we were confused (despite both being physicians).
5/

And, more importantly, we were lost in frustration and survival mode trying to figure out how we were going to navigate 2 weeks with a kindergartner at home. So we completely underthought and overlooked it.

6/

We 100% should have had him tested.

Why?

Because breaking the chain of transmission means knowing how many generations of contacts need quarantined.

If he had been positive, then WE should have been tested.

Best practice is to test contacts until you get a negative.

7/

This was only brought to our attention 12 days later when the state contact tracer finally called us (first contact from them- a whole other issue) and mentioned that he should be tested.

We were floored that the directive was so confusing in the initial letter.

8/

So it is confusing and without very clear instruction at a time when people are scrambling to fit a quarantine into their lives, people will get it wrong like we did.

And we are 2 physicians steeped in #COVID19 prevention.

9/

So as a gesture of continuous improvement, I emailed @Marion_Health and suggested some wording changes to encourage testing for these contacts, rather than verbage that seems to disincentivize it.

I guess it is all I can do.

Lesson learned.

fin/