Portage County Health & Human Services has asked us to share the following message and attachments (click on the attachment titles below in red). You can also view the Portage County Town Hall recorded October 7th HERE.

Recently, our county and its communities have seen a significant increase in positive COVID-19 cases. (See the link below for September 23, 2020, press release).

This increase in COVID-19 cases means that Portage County Health Division’s contact tracers do all they can to contact each person who tested positive for COVID (a Positive Test Case) as well as a limited number of people who came into close contact with the Positive Test Case. County contact tracers attempt to contact each Positive Test Case 24-48 hours after the Positive Test Case receives his/her test results.

When the county’s contact tracers talk to each Positive Test Case, the contact tracers provide that person with information which outlines proper COVID response procedures. Contact tracers also ask each Positive Test Case to share this COVID response procedure information with that person’s close contacts. As you can imagine, it is difficult for us to ensure that the Positive Test Cases pass this information on to their close contacts.

That is where you come in.  Because we are all part of the effort to slow down the spread of this pandemic, the Portage County Health Department is letting you know that we need your help. You can help us by joining our team in doing the following:

1. Knowing what to do if you, your employees, your customers, or your vendors test positive (See the attachment entitled If you Test Positive, ISOLATE);
2. Being able to recognize what a close contact is (See the attachment entitled What Is a Close Contact?); and
3. If you, your business, your employees, your customers, and/or your vendors come into contact with someone who is a known positive case, helping us do contact tracing by following the steps in the attachments entitled What to do if COVID-19 Affects Your Business and How to Contact Trace.

By doing these things, you truly are a member of the team, because you are helping us distribute the same information that our contact tracers provide to every Positive Test Case person.  This information will help decrease the number of positive cases, lighten the burden on our health care providers, and help keep your and other businesses open.

If you have further questions or would like additional guidance, please call or email our department at (715) 345-5350, option 8 or PCPublicHealth@co.portage.wi.us.  We are all in this together, and we appreciate your help!

Link to Sept. 23 PR: https://www.co.portage.wi.us/home/showdocument?id=32035

Link to cleaning for businesses: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/cleaning-disinfecting-decision-tool.html

Respectfully,
Gary L. Garske, RS, MPH
Division of Public Health Manager|Portage County Health Officer
Portage County Health and Human Services
817 Whiting Avenue|Stevens Point, WI 54481-5246
Phone: (715) 345-5350|Fax: (715) 345-5760