Government agencies are responsible for implementing and demonstrating the best practice in reducing COVID-19 transmission between employees and the community. Screening and testing are essential in meeting this challenge.
Government
Government Agency Testing and Surveillance Programs
Nexsun Diagnostic Labs can provide the solutions you need to meet these challenges.
How Our Program Works
Nexsun Diagnostic Labs offers government agencies fast, reliable, PCR testing to help prevent the coronavirus from adversely impacting your service delivery.
We supply you with all the necessary equipment for testing including essential paperwork for confidentiality, administration, recording, and reporting. We make the process simple for both rapid individual diagnostic tests and routine screening of all employees—our results are accurate with a fast turnaround.
Why Partner with Nexsun Labs for Your Testing Needs?
Nexsun is CLIA certified and able to process bulk tests and individual diagnostic tests rapidly and accurately. Nexsun offers the most appropriate, accurate, and affordable testing COVID-19 services for government agencies.
• Your employees get quick access to a diagnostic test with results in 24 hours or less.
• Pool testing rapidly clears employees for ongoing work, and any follow-up testing is rapid and timely.
• We supply testing materials so you don’t need to worry about procurement and quality issues.
• Our dedicated team files the appropriate paperwork confidentially.
Benefits of an Ongoing Testing Program
Types of Screening and Surveillance Programs for Government Agencies
Depending on state and federal requirements, CDC best practices and your workplace hazard assessment, you will need to utilize a combination of:
• Workplace entry screening.
• Individual diagnostic testing.
• Pod and pool testing.
Pre-Entry Screening
Screening before employees or members of the public access your building helps to keep COVID-19 out of the premises. Pre-entry screening may take place remotely, on a self-reported digital platform, or physically, on entry to a building.
Physical pre-entry checks may involve a symptoms questionnaire, a visual health check, and possibly a temperature check.
Before employees come to work, a preliminary diagnostic or screening test is practical when working away from the building for extended periods, having had a vacation, or being ill. It is reasonable to expect new employees to have a negative PCR test before coming into work on the first day or for those who work remotely and come in for a physical meeting.
Daily Entrance Screening
Although it adds a few extra minutes to the workday, COVID screening for government agencies is now as familiar as checking your security pass.
Rapid testing can be a part of the daily entrance check. Still, more often, a weekly screening test, either individually or in pools, is the best way of detecting asymptomatic carriers. It is equally important to record the results and maintain screening records if you carry out daily screening.
Pool Testing
As a method of rapidly and affordably clearing your workplace or critical sections for safe operations, pool testing is the best approach.
By selecting pools of employees in close contact with each other, you can test them as a single unit. If the pool tests negative, everyone is in the clear. If the pool tests positive, then an individual diagnostic test is needed to determine the one or two employees carrying the infection and simultaneously test their close work contacts.
The sample taken for pod testing is sufficient to allow both a pool test and an individual follow-up test if necessary. After a positive pool test, the cleared individuals need to self-monitor for potential symptoms. For your screening program, you can opt for the less invasive and more affordable saliva COVID-19 test or the traditional nasal swab COVID-19 test.
Contact Tracing
Contact tracing is an essential part of limiting potential Coronavirus transmission. The risk of catching COVID-19 by individual transmission increases with close contact – being within six feet of a confirmed case for around 15 minutes over a 24-hour period. The 15 minutes aren’t necessarily a block of contact but maybe a series of more minor contacts throughout a working day – the risk is cumulative.
Vaccinated close contacts and those wearing full PPE have a lesser risk of contagion and currently do not need to isolate or take a test unless they have symptoms. However, tracing and notifying close contacts to individuals with the virus helps those contacts, vaccinated or not, be on alert for symptoms from a potential infection.
Digital contact tracing systems save time and effort when one of your employees reports a positive COVID-19 result.
What to Do if You Have an Outbreak
An outbreak sounds serious, like it involves a massive amount of people, but in reality, two people with a connection that test positive for COVID-19 are considered an outbreak. If this occurs, an investigation is necessary to determine the root causes of the outbreak.
Regardless of vaccination status, anyone with COVID-19 symptoms should not enter the workplace. If someone develops symptoms in the workplace, they need to leave, isolate, and preferably take a diagnostic test.
Close contacts of confirmed cases need notification. Depending on your COVID-19 policy, these individuals need a heightened awareness of symptoms but don’t need to isolate if fully vaccinated or recently recovered from Coronavirus (within 90 days). For peace of mind, you may prefer PCR testing to check for asymptomatic carriers.
Other employees with close contact need notification of the possibility of infection as well. These employees need to monitor themselves for symptoms and potentially quarantine for five days after the exposure. For peace of mind, you may prefer to automatically test close contacts to pick up asymptomatic individuals and reassure employees that they are not carrying the virus. Regular COVID testing picks up cases quickly and minimizes the time out of work for your employees.
Which Program is Best for Your Government Agency?
Different government agencies face different risks of COVID-19 transmission between employees and in the community. Even within a government agency, various groups of employees face different risks from:
Regular close contact
with the public
Regular close contact
with colleagues
Frequent travel
between locations
Inspecting or working
in different buildings
The frequency of screening tests depends on the frequency of contact with other people, but the CDC recommends weekly screening for most purposes. You may prefer more frequent testing for employees where staff shortages severely impact your capacity to deliver services or where staff work with vulnerable groups.
Bottom Line: partnering with a dedicated testing laboratory, like Nexsun, means you get accurate and consistent testing of your agency at an affordable price.
