More than 12,000 tri-provincial residents have tested positive for COVID-19 since the first cases were reported in March.
As the local area continues to see cases increase, the Marion County Department of Health shares important things that someone newly diagnosed with COVID-19 should know in the days and weeks after their diagnosis.
Insulate at home
- Stay in one room, away from others in your household, including pets.
- Use only one bathroom.
- Do a cloth with face covering.
- Do not share personal household items such as cups, cutlery and towels.
Home care
- Keep track of all symptoms and check your temperature twice a day.
- Look for common symptoms: fever or fever, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body muscles, headache, new loss of taste or smell, arm twitch, disturbance or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, and diarrhea.
- Wake up for severe symptoms: difficulty breathing, persistent pain or pressure in the chest, confusion, inability to wake up or stay awake, or bluish lips or face.
- Call your doctor as a health insurer if your symptoms decrease.
- Ask your doctor as a healthcare professional about pain and short-term medication.
- Get some rest and stay hydrated.
Visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/care-for-someone.html for more information.
If you test positive, public health staff will check on you and your contacts. This is called contact tracing, and it is a core function of public health that helps stop the spread of the disease.
Timeline for stopping self-isolation
- If you test positive with symptoms, then it should take at least 10 days since your symptoms first appeared and at least 24 hours should continue because you have had a fever without using fever-reducing medications, and other symptoms have improved.
- If you test positive without symptoms, then at least 10 days must pass since the day you were tested, and you have no symptoms.
