Our guidelines for monitoring wellness and for testing

Posted: July 28, 2020

Gannon University is committed to ensuring the health and safety of its students, faculty and staff. To facilitate an organized and controlled return to campus and resumption of face-to-face learning, we have implemented the following policies and practices.

We will start with a couple of key policies:

If you have COVID-19 or are under orders by the Health Department to quarantine for being exposed to someone with COVID-19, DO NOT REPORT TO CAMPUS.
If you are a student living on campus who is in isolation or under quarantine, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR DESIGNATED AREA. Anything you might need will be brought to you.
If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you should not report to campus. If you report these through the LiveSafe app, one of the nurses at Gannon Health Center will call you to discuss your next steps, which could include a COVID-19 test or a quarantine. Anyone with the symptoms listed below should notify their supervisor or the Student Success Center to report their need to refrain from campus.

Symptoms of COVID-19 include:

Fever (100.4 or higher) and/or chills or night-sweats
Sore throat and/or cough
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
Body aches
New loss of taste or smell
Diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting

Again, if a student, faculty or staff member has been advised to quarantine or isolate, they must remain off-campus or in a designated housing area (for students) until they have been cleared to return to campus activities by the Gannon Health Center.

Daily Wellness Checks and Temperature Checks

Temperature checks are a key tool to keeping fevers out of our buildings, and in particular out of key areas of campus that have the highest density of students.

In Erie, that’s the Waldron Campus Center, Beyer Cafeteria, the Recreation and Wellness Center, and Nash Library. Thermal scanners have been placed at the entrance to each of those facilities and are located at several other key areas of campus to provide fast, accurate, no-touch measurements of body temperature.

In Ruskin, temperature checks will be in the main building.

Anyone displaying a temperature of 100.4° F will be asked to leave the facility/building/campus, and they will be counseled to follow up with the Gannon Health Center or their personal physician.

The Wellness Check questionnaire is provided via the LiveSafe app and we expect it to be completed prior to arriving on campus.

In addition, Gannon faculty, staff and students are required to participate in daily Wellness Checks, which includes a self-monitored temperature check to discourage anyone who is experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 from reporting to campus.

Paper questionnaires will be provided as an alternative at a temperature check station in the Waldron Campus for those who are unable to access the LiveSafe app or the LiveSafe website. Below are PDFs – one to show you how to download the LiveSafe app and one that gives an overview of what you’re looking at. Each features a QR code to direct you to the app for download.

(The LiveSafe app can be downloaded onto an iPhone or Android smartphone. Technical support for the app is available through the ITS help desk or support@livesafemobile.com.)

The questionnaire requires a temperature check. This can be self-administered using the thermometer provided to you in your welcome kit, or it can be taken at one of the stations on campus.

The daily Wellness Check will indicate to the individual whether it is safe for them to attend campus activities. The user will receive either a green check or red X indicating whether they have passed or failed the Wellness Check.

The results of the daily Wellness Check will be sent to the user’s email account that was entered when completing the survey. The user will want to ensure that they can quickly access the survey result by either a “screenshot” or email verification. STUDENTS WILL BE REQUIRED TO SHOW THEIR GREEN CHECK UPON ENTERING EACH CLASS.

If an individual fails the Wellness Check, they will be contacted by the Gannon Health Center to review their symptoms.

The Health Center can determine if a COVID-19 test is needed or recommend that the individual contact their physician.
The Health Center can also clear the individual to resume their campus activities should their symptoms not warrant a test or support a need for them to remain off-campus.

All information gathered is HIPAA compliant and will only be accessed by those who need to have access to the information collected (e.g. Human Resources and the Gannon Health Center)

Observed Daily Temperature Checks

(This applies to faculty, staff and student-athletes and student workers)

Most departments and offices have been provided with no-touch thermometers or thermal imagers for use by supervisors to screen employees at the start of their shift. At the supervisor’s discretion, employees can be screened at their office or at the central thermal screening center in the Waldron Campus Center.

Each staff member and each faculty member MUST have an observed temperature check each day, in addition to filling out the daily Wellness Check questionnaire in the LiveSafe app.

Faculty and staff will be asked to show LiveSafe Survey results (e.g. their green checkmark) when arriving to work. For adjuncts and faculty who are here on campus after hours or weekends, they should report to the temperature check station in the Waldron Campus Center. Waldron will have someone at the station at the registration desk recording names.

More specifically, this is how temperature screening will work among faculty:

Each academic department will designate a recorder or point person.
Faculty, including adjuncts, must have their temperature taken on campus in one of the several methods available, including temperature check stations or department touchless thermometers with a witness that the temperature check was completed. They must report to the assigned recorder that the temperature check was completed.
Each college has developed a shared tracking sheet like Google Docs. The designee will record that the temperature check was completed on the shared document.

As for students, they will be expected to show their green check at the start of class.

Student workers also must have an observed temperature check at their place of work.

Any individual who wishes to enter their workplace or classroom who has not completed their daily wellness check will be refused entry until they have completed it. Remember, the daily check includes an affirmation that your temperature is less than 100.4 degrees.

Testing and monitoring

Faculty, staff and students suspected of having COVID-19 based on their wellness check or who appear to be symptomatic may be required by the Gannon Health Center to obtain a COVID-19 test before being cleared to return to campus. The Gannon Health Center will coordinate the testing.

Faculty, staff and students who have been exposed to an individual who has tested positive for COVID-19 and have been ordered to quarantine by the county Department of Health may be required to obtain a COVID-19 test before being cleared to resume campus activities. The Gannon Health Center will coordinate the testing.

Faculty, staff and students who are asymptomatic but wish to obtain a COVID-19 test will be permitted, within reason, to request one from the Gannon Health Center.

Faculty, staff and students who are asked to obtain a test can opt for a 14-day quarantine. They will not be permitted to return to work or campus activities until they have completed it and have been cleared by the Gannon Health Center.

Faculty and staff may be subject to discipline for failure to comply with these guidelines.