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This means that if, for example, a colleague you sat down with in the same office or a coworker you used the common dining room with for lunch was confirmed to have coronavirus, you should isolate yourself immediately after learning. Information about the fact that you had contact in this case must be provided to the NVSC by the infected person.
People who have been in contact with COVID-19 should wait a few days for NVSC specialists to call. If they are not calling yet, individuals should contact the NVSC hotline and inform them of their contact and await further instructions from the NVSC.
It is important to note that in the aforementioned case, when a person has been in contact with an infected colleague, it is not necessary to isolate the relatives of the person who has been in contact with the infected, only the person who has been in contact with the patient. In general, family members are already the so-called contact contacts, which is not considered a risk. So, in this case, people need not worry, follow the usual COVID-19 disease prevention measures.
The same condition applies in other cases. Thus, if, for example, it turns out that a person has been in contact with a sick coronavirus and had dinner with friends at a meeting, then the former friends are not isolated because they did not have contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19.
The NVSC also recalls that an exposure is considered 3 days before a person who has already been confirmed to have coronavirus develops symptoms and a person who has been in contact for two weeks after the onset of symptoms. At the time of contact with a patient who did not develop specific symptoms of the coronavirus, the person who was exposed was considered to have been in contact for 72 hours. before taking a smear from a patient who tested positive and 14 days after taking a smear.
That is, it is evaluated if a person has been in contact with a patient at a time when, according to scientific evidence, the person represented a risk for another, that is, they could have contracted it.
It is also important to assess what contact the person has had. In general terms, when explaining whether the exposure was high or low risk, it is important to assess the circumstances, i.e. to what extent, for how long the communication took place, whether personal protective equipment was used, etc.
High-risk contact (close contact with COVID-19) is defined as a person who has been in contact with an infected person for less than 15 meters for more than 15 minutes, or a person who has had direct physical contact, such as giving hand to a person with a coronavirus infection.
Exposure is also considered high risk if a person has been in direct contact without protective measures with body fluids contaminated in the COVID-19 box. In general, if the patient had a face, the tissues used in the COVID-19 kit were touched with bare hands, etc.
Additionally, being in a confined space with a person with COVID-19 for more than 15 minutes is considered a high-risk contact. This means that if, for example, a person has been infected in one of the meeting rooms without properly wearing personal protective equipment, their former colleagues are considered to be at high risk.
NVSC experts recall that people at high risk should isolate themselves, monitor their health and, if symptoms occur, contact the Coronary Hotline for a PCR test for coronavirus infection. Importantly, not all high-risk people are screened, depending on the spread of infection in a particular outbreak.
At that time, a person who had been in contact with an infected coronavirus for more than 15 minutes at a distance of more than 2 meters was considered to have had a low-risk exposure or, more generally, an accidental exposure. The same condition applies to both indoor and outdoor contact. Also, if, for example, a person rode a trolley bus with an infected person, wore protective gear, and got off the trolley after 10 minutes, that exposure will be considered low risk.
Low-risk people are not isolated, they, like all Lithuanians, must monitor their health and follow COVID-19 prevention measures.
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