Dear colleagues,

I am part of the employee health program at our main pediatric hospital in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, and am looking for some examples of what other pediatric hospitals (although not limited to these) are doing regarding symptom screening of visitors, patients and employees at entry into our facilities.

As masks are coming off, my Infection Control colleagues are telling me that it is extremely likely that the incidence of non-COVID viral respiratory infections will rise (as is apparently happening in some parts of the country, even though we are not in “RSV season.”  RSV, influenza and other respiratory illnesses can cause most of the same symptoms as COVID (except, perhaps, loss of taste/smell, which is less common). Thus, as we apply our COVID symptom screening questions to vaccinated individuals, the majority of “positives” will be “false positive” for COVID. Not sure how to best handle these scenarios. It would be nice if employees  (or parents or visitors) with any potentially contagious illness did not come to work, but this is not how we handled this in the pre-COVID19 era. Will we require these employees to get tested for COVID even though they have been vaccinated? How are you all handling the revamping of screening procedures?

Looking forward to your insights and hearing about your experience.

Thanks!

George.

George L. Delclos, MD, MPH, PhD

Consulting Medical Director, Texas Children’s Hospital

Medical Director, UT Health Services

Professor

Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences

Associate Director, Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Program

The University of Texas School of Public Health

P.O. Box 20186

Houston, Texas 77225-0186

Phone:   713 500 9459

FAX:        713 500 9442

Email:     George.Delclos@uth.tmc.edu