Provost shares new online form for positive cases, triggers for campus closure

Provost Sue Ott Rowlands sent an email out this afternoon that includes a new online form for positive COVID-19 cases, information on when someone should quarantine and other educational information.

“So far, our campus has been doing a great job of following the Healthy@NKU measures, and–at this point–we have not had large outbreaks,” Rowlands said in the email. 

NKU created the COVID-19 online form to “assure uniform reporting and record keeping, while also protecting people’s privacy” according to the email. No personal identifying information from the form will be released to the community or the public and will be stored on a HIPAA compliant secure server. 

The data from the form will be used for a new entry on the NKU’s COVID-19 dashboard that will record rolling seven-day averages of NKU’s total number of cases starting next week. 

Rowlands said she has received a lot of questions about when someone should quarantine and shared how the CDC defines close contact. According to the CDC, you should quarantine if you have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19, excluding those who have had the virus in the past three months.

The CDC defines close contact as:

• “You were within six feet of someone who has COVID-19 for a total of 15 minutes or more.
• You provided care at home to someone who is sick with COVID-19.
• You had direct physical contact with the person (hugged or kissed them).
• You shared eating or drinking utensils.
• They sneezed, coughed, or somehow got respiratory droplets on you.”

Rowlands included another document in the email that details NKU’s decision metrics for complete campus closure, partial closure or further actions to lessen the number of people on campus. The document includes community and campus considerations and possible actions.

Rowlands reminded the campus community to follow NKU’s Norse Nine principles and “practice proper health habits, like wearing a facial covering and washing your hands.”