COVID-19

If you traveled or celebrated with travelers for Thanksgiving, quarantine

Staying home for 14 days after an exposure stops the spread of COVID-19

Published:

December 2, 2020

Last Updated:

November 29, 2022

If you traveled outside the Bay Area to celebrate Thanksgiving or spent the holiday with travelers from elsewhere, Health Officers around the region strongly recommend that you self-quarantine for 14 days.

Mixing with households elsewhere creates a high risk of COVID-19 exposure, a risk that's heightened amidst an unprecedented spread of COVID-19 nationwide.

You should quarantine if you:

Spent time within 6 feet of people you do not normally live with, while you or anyone around you was not wearing a face mask - especially if you were indoors.
Travelled on planes, buses, trains or other shared vehicles, if face masks were not worn at all times by both you and the other people in the vehicle.

This high-risk behavior may have seemed as routine as a child coming home from college or a plane trip to see a grandparent. But in a pandemic with a virus that spreads easily through breath, preventing further infections is something each of us can help do.

Quarantines stop the spread.

"To stop COVID-19, it's not just the person who tests positive who needs to take action," said Dr. Lisa B. Hernandez, Berkeley's Health Officer. "All of us who were exposed -- even when we feel fine -- need to act. Quarantines keep our family, friends and community safe."

Health Order requires quarantine for close contacts of COVID-19 positive cases

This regional travel-related recommendation parallels a quarantine order, already in place in Berkeley, that requires people to quarantine if they were exposed to someone with -- or presumed to have -- COVID-19.

Public health workers, known as contact tracers, use interviews with a person who tests positive to identify and reach out to close contacts -- people who might be potentially infected and spreading COVID-19.

Someone is considered a close contact if they were within 6 feet of someone infectious with COVID-19 for a total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You can also be a close contact if you shared food or utensils with, had direct physical contact with or were sneezed or coughed upon by someone sick with COVID-19.

Quarantines are different than isolation, which is required of those who test positive or are presumed to be positive for COVID-19.

Testing is a snapshot in time

The amount of the virus in an infected person may be undetectable at first. A negative test on any previous day doesn't rule out testing positive later in the disease process.

A negative test doesn't mean you don't have COVID-19, especially in quarantine.

That makes quarantines essential. While everyone should stay home when sick, an estimated 50 percent of COVID-19 cases are infected by people who didn't have symptoms or know they were sick. Quarantines can stop the otherwise exponential domino effect of COVID-19 spread.

Steps to take in quarantine

The fundamentals of staying in quarantine are straightforward:

Stay home for 14 days after your last contact with a person who has COVID-19 or your high risk exposure
Watch for fever (100.4◦F), cough, shortness of breath, or other symptoms of COVID-19
If possible, stay away from others, especially people who are at higher risk for getting very sick from COVID-19

Use physical distance and face coverings to protect yourself

You greatly reduce potential exposure -- and chances you'll need to quarantine -- by wearing a face covering and keeping at least six feet of distance from those outside of your household. Everyone should also stay home when sick and wash hands regularly.

"In addition to the daily habits we all should practice, quarantine and isolation are fundamental tools to keeping our community safe in the face of a virus that threatens us all," said Dr. Hernandez.