MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Shelby County health officials are issuing new social isolation guidelines for those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
The COVID-19 task force began Thursday’s press briefing with good news.
“Our overall average, new cases per day, is now running below 200 per day which is positive,” said Shelby County Health Department Director Dr. Alisa Haushalter.
Wednesday, there were 157 new infections reported.
“Unfortunately, we’ve have 340 deaths, but that does continue to keep us at a very low death rate of 1.3%, which continues to bode well for Shelby County,” Haushalter said.
The positivity rate is also moving in the right direction.
But then the health director issued some new isolation guidelines for people diagnosed with COVID-19.
“Individuals have to be isolated–that means away from everybody else–for a minimum of 10 days, and they have to be symptom free for 24 hours,” Haushalter said. “If someone is symptomatic, they may have to be isolated for well over 20 days.”
Someone who has a family member with COVID-19 would have to stay at home and go through a 10-day isolation. Then, even if that person is not showing symptoms, they may be told to self-isolate for another 14 days after that.
That could mean more than three weeks off the job or away from school.
“That ultimately means–and this is particularly germane to students, because they could have been exposed in a household–that a child who is a contact could actually miss up to 24 days of school because they have been a contact,” Haushalter said.
The director calls this “marathon mode” and believes that’s the only way to contain the spread in order to get back to school and back to business.
The health department also addressed sporting events. The department is still not recommending them, but with some athletics moving forward under the governor’s direction, the health department can’t stop it.
However, it did say it would limit spectator capacity to 50%, mandate masks for those in the crowd and require at least 12 feet of social distance.
