Guthrie County Public Health advises that COVID-19 cases will continue to grow in the county for the foreseeable future, and as such employers should educate themselves on best practices to keep in order to prevent the virus from spreading to those most vulnerable.

Public Health Director Jotham Arber encourages local employers to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s best practices for reducing the spread of illness in the workplace. These include employees that have COVID-19 symptoms to stay home and not come to work until they are free of fever and any other symptoms for at least 24 hours, and to not require a healthcare provider’s note for employees that are sick to validate their illness or return to work. Arber shares what employers should do once they know about a positive case, “When an employee identifies themselves to an employer that they have had a confirmed positive (case), at that point I would encourage that business to give the public health department a call and just kind of walk through with the public health department what it is that they do. Each business is going to be different so each step to doing, whether it’s needing to clean, a deep clean of that area, whether it’s a quarantining of individuals, will need to be done on a case-by-case basis.”

Arber says some businesses faced with an employee that’s tested positive may not have to do much besides quarantining that individual and cleaning their workspace, but for other employers he says social distancing and mandating face masks or shields can go a long way toward getting a business back on its feet. For more COVID-19 resources, visit here.