AV Faithful,
We have been lucky to this point, but we have a staff member that has tested positive for COVID-19. Luckily, this staff member was not having clinical signs while working, and self-quarantined when the single clinical sign developed.
Thanks to the stringent AtlasVet COVID-19 protocols, this staff member was wearing PPE while in the clinic (mask while on clinic premises) and following our in-house safety protocols (frequent washing of hands, maintaining social distancing from other employees). This makes potential transmission to fellow employees “Low Risk” according to CDC guidelines. AtlasVet has also been split into two teams since March 24th and the team working Monday – Wednesday had no contact with this employee. Additionally, this employee did not have contact with any of our clients.
We learned of the positive test this afternoon, Sunday May 10th. The employee has not been in the building for 4 days. AtlasVet is going to perform a deep clean of the premises at 6am tomorrow, Monday May 11th, and will be opening an hour late to allow the cleaners to finish their thorough cleaning.
We will be asking employees to monitor their own clinical signs, and not return to work if clinical signs consistent with COVID-19 are present. All employees are being asked to take their own temperature prior to coming to work each day.
We strongly feel that by instituting our COVID-19 protocols when we did, that we have done everything we could to prevent potential transmission of the virus to AtlasVet Team Members and to our clients.
The safety of our employees, our clients, and our patients, remains paramount in every protocol that we enact.
Thank you for your ongoing support and stay safe,
Dr. Antkowiak & Dr. Miller
The recent diagnoses of COVID-19 in two cats in New York State has pet owners asking a lot of very good questions. Here we address the most common questions: