In the past four weeks, there has been an increase of 829 confirmed COVID-19 cases with an additional 38 hospitalizations and nine more deaths in Champaign County.

Symptoms of COVID-19 include common ones such as fever, body ache, dry cough, fatigue, chills, headache, sore throat, loss of appetite and loss of smell. In some people, COVID-19 causes more severe symptoms like high fever, severe cough and shortness of breath.

If you experience symptoms or suspect that you are ill, stay home except to get medical care or get tested. People who are mildly ill with COVID-19 are able to recover at home but should not leave or visit public areas.

If you need to seek medical care or be tested, contact your medical provider and be sure to call them before going in. Seek immediate care if you feel worse or believe there is an emergency.

Stay home, monitor symptoms and avoid others if:

– You are sick and/or are awaiting test results

– Someone you live with is sick and/or is awaiting test results

– Someone you work closely with is sick and/or is awaiting test results

– Someone you socialize with is sick and/or is awaiting test results

– You test positive

– Someone you live with tests positive

– Someone you work closely with tests positive

– Someone you socialize with tests positive

Test results are typically available in 48 hours but can take longer. Public Health is only notified when there is a confirmed positive result.

“Most of the time, test results are provided to the patient by the facility that administers the test, typically by the online medical chart database,” Karrie Cordial, RN, Communicable Disease Nurse for Champaign Health District, said. “If you receive a positive test result, a contact tracer from the health department will typically be in contact with you within 72 hours to explain quarantine, isolation and contact tracing.”

Contact tracing will be conducted for close contacts (any individual within six feet of an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more) of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Close contacts of any confirmed positive COVID-19 patients will be contacted and asked to quarantine.

Quarantine refers to the practice of separating individuals who have had close contact with someone with COVID-19 to determine whether they develop symptoms or test positive for the disease. Quarantine also reduces the risk of transmission if an individual is later found to have COVID-19.

The confirmed COVID-19 patient will be instructed to isolate until at least 10 days have passed since symptom onset and at least 24 hours have passed since resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and other symptoms have improved.

“Until the COVID-19 vaccine is out and available for the general public — isolation and quarantine, if done properly, are likely the most important public health measures we have of reducing or eliminating person to person spread of COVID-19,” Gabe Jones, MPH, Health Commissioner, said.

Ohio Department of Health (ODH) followed the guidance of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) new options for quarantine following possible COVID-19 exposure. Previously, quarantine was a 14-day period – now there are three different options to choose from.