Italy trippers return home

Friday’s update concerning the MVNU trip came from Julie Miller, Knox County Health commissioner; Lisa Dudgeon, the county’s director of nursing and communicable disease nurse; and Pam Palm, public information officer. Dudgeon said she has been in touch with returnees’ family members starting Wednesday evening, the day the eight travelers flew back to the United States through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and then on to Columbus. She said they received a health screening in Italy before returning home but could not confirm screening also took place in New York.

Dudgeon will be calling the returnees every day through March 19, asking them to take their temperatures and follow through a check-list to see if they exhibit potential symptoms such as runny noses, cough or are short of breath. They are asked to report any symptoms if they were to develop. So far all eight are doing fine and in good spirits, she said.

Dudgeon’s interactions also include an important request.

“I just instruct them that no visitors are to enter the home,” she said.

Miller said she has been asked by residents such questions as to why returnees’ family members are in their homes with them and are not asked to be under the same home-based quarantine. She has responded that family members, as long as they also follow social distancing and hygienic precautions, are at low risk.

Miller, Dudgeon and Kyle Clark, the county health department’s emergency preparedness coordinator, attended a coronavirus-related meeting in Columbus Thursday, convened by Gov. Mike DeWine and his cabinet, including the Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton. Several hundred health department officials from across the state were on hand, Miller said, and all are following screening protocols should a possible case be detected. As of Friday, there has not been a confirmed coronavirus case in Ohio.

With Congress setting aside about $8 billion in federal funds to help handle coronavirus cases, testing kits are being sent to each state, Miller said. Ohio is expected to receive its kits at any time, which will be kept at the ODH in Columbus, Miller said. Doing so will help to reduce the turn-around time on testing results. Currently, counties are asked to take nasal and mouth swabs from individuals suspected of possibly being infected, and sending those samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, with a turn-around time of 48 hours for results.

Kenyon College has also asked that four of its students studying in Italy return to their homes and not the campus, following the CDC’s Level 3 warning to avoid nonessential travel. The students are not Knox County residents.

Miller said she has since been made aware that should any Kenyon students contract the coronavirus, Kenyon said it does have the means to screen and quarantine them on campus so they can remain close and be treated locally.

“Our four students who had been scheduled to study in Italy through the semester have returned or are currently in the process of returning to their hometowns in the United States, not to Kenyon’s campus,” Kenyon spokesperson Mary Keister said. “Their program providers have converted their programs to online or remote coursework, enabling those students to complete their studies from their homes.”

The other 19 MVNU Italy trip participants from outside Knox County, including 15 students and four other adults, have been asked to check in with their local health departments upon their return home for self-quarantine through March 19.