Pilots Prevent
January 11, 2021
This spring will find a good number of students moving back to campus and getting to experience life on The Bluff, and with them comes an increased amount of faculty and staff on campus to support them. But with this opportunity comes the responsibility to keep ourselves and the UP community safe by adhering to Pilots Prevent COVID-19 safety protocols—one of the key elements of which is daily symptom monitoring.
Symptom monitoring isn’t just about taking your temperature, it’s actually a comprehensive plan that starts with downloading an app. Anyone coming to campus must log their symptoms, or lack thereof, using either the Campus Clear or Carbon Health app. But which one you use depends on whether you’re a student or employee.
Students living on campus or coming to campus regularly, and employees designated as “High Contact” or “Low Contact,” are required to download the Carbon Health app. However, wait until you receive the emailed invitation, then download the app using the link provided in the email. This will ensure you are linked to UP’s account with Carbon Health.
The Carbon Health app is essential for being notified about, and scheduling, the surveillance COVID-19 testing that students coming to campus, as well as high- and low-contact employees, are required to complete occasionally throughout the spring.
For students, the app also has a daily symptom tracker that will ask the student questions about how they’re feeling. Kaylin Soldat, associate director for primary care in UP’s Health and Counseling Center, recommends students complete the symptom tracker daily, even before classes start, so they get in the habit of using it. “It’s required for the days they’ll be on campus, and they may be asked to show proof that they’ve completed it for the day if they are accessing any campus spaces.”
If the student does have symptoms, the app will alert them to stay home, and give them the option to be contacted by a health care provider with Carbon Health to talk through their symptoms. “They might give recommendations to follow up with the HCC or a health care professional for testing,” Soldat says, “or to isolate and monitor your symptoms for the next few days.”
If symptomatic testing is recommended, the student can schedule it with the HCC Monday through Friday. Outside of those hours they would have to use a private testing provider. If the test is positive and done on campus, the student will be automatically connected with a COVID Case Manager. If the test is positive and done by a private provider, the student will need to submit a COVID report on the Pilots Prevent webpage so the UP Case Management Team can arrange a case manager and support.
Although “High Contact” and “Low Contact” staff and faculty must download the Carbon Health app for surveillance testing purposes (notifications, scheduling, results), they’ll use a different app — Campus Clear — for monitoring their symptoms before coming to campus. Yes, that means this group of employees needs two apps.
The other two classifications of employees—“No Contact” and “Exclusively Remote” — are asked to only download the Campus Clear app, and they must use it to track their symptoms before coming to campus.
“If you’re supposed to come to campus but have any of the symptoms on the Campus Clear app, stay home, contact your supervisor and contact HR,” says Meg Farra in human resources. “It’s so easy for people to write off the possible symptoms as something else. We want to keep them and the campus community as safe as possible, so we’re advising not to come to campus and to talk to their health care provider to see if they need a test.”
If you’re worried about running out of sick days, don’t be. “The University made a decision that anytime an employee has to take time off for COVID symptoms, isolation, or quarantine, it doesn’t come out of employee’s personal sick leave bank,” says Farra. “That ensures that people who need to stay home can do that regardless of their sick time or vacation bank hours.”
However, student employees would have to use their personal sick time. “Our student employment office would reach out to a student employee who calls in sick to provide support and resource information,” Farra says. “Students experiencing financial hardship due to COVID can apply for some assistance through the Presidential Hope Fund.” Students employee who need other resource information may also contact studentemployment@up.edu for information.
The goal of monitoring symptoms through the apps—Carbon Health for students, Campus Clear for employees—is all about proceeding to campus with caution, in order to keep our community as safe as possible. “We’re asking people to be aware of any symptoms—on a daily basis—by using the symptom tracker, and if they are having symptoms to stay isolated until they can speak with a medical provider,” says Soldat. “It’s that simple.”
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