Through Apex Solutions and NCCU’s public health partners, the university has a stringent contact-tracing protocol to identify close contacts of all persons who test positive for COVID-19. It is important to understand that while NCCU uses the CDC definition of a close contact as a working definition, situations unique to campus life may necessitate quarantine of persons who may not fall into the working definition.
Fully vaccinated students are not required to quarantine after exposure if the following criteria are met:
- Fully vaccinated (14 days after the second dose of Pfizer or Moderna or 14 days after Johnson & Johnson/Janssen)
While not required to quarantine, vaccinated individuals must still:
- Monitor for symptoms for 14 days.
- Follow all other guidance including face coverings, hand washing, and social distancing.
- Immediate self-isolate if any symptoms develop and report the symptoms to [email protected].
Once Apex Solutions identifies a positive COVID-19 student, appropriate members of the NCCU COVID-19 team as well as the Durham County Health Department are notified. Apex conducts an interview with that individual to determine exposure possibilities such as class schedule, work colleagues, and their housing situation and uses that information to identify close contacts of the individual on campus, including students, faculty, and staff. A series of testing and isolation/quarantine of all close contacts is then initiated.
For contact tracing to work, participants must be thorough and honest. We ask the Eagle family to remember that this is bigger than any one of us and failure to provide honest, accurate information puts others at risk.
For persons who test positive through testing off-campus, it is imperative that NCCU be notified immediately so that the team can begin the process of contact tracing and testing on campus.