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Over the past few months, the Perry County Health Department has issued a number of public health notices regarding possible COVID-19 exposures at local businesses.
The most recent, issued Thursday afternoon, was for Mary Jane Burgers and Brew in Perryville, warning that patrons who were in the restaurant between 6-7 p.m. on Aug. 5, my have been exposed and should monitor themselves for symptoms for 14 days from the date of the possible exposure, in this case, Aug. 19.
"If you were at Mary Jane Burgers and Brew [during that time], please monitor for symptoms for 14 days following exposure," the notice reads. "It is encouraged for anyone who develops symptoms to reach out to their medical provider to seek testing and stay home until any testing results are received."
These notices are intended to advise the public of instances where they might have been exposed to the novel coronavirus without realizing it. They are not issued in every instance of a reported positive case and are not intended to warn people away from those businesses in the future.
According to health department officials, it all comes down to contact tracing and whether or not investigators can easily identify those who might have been exposed.
"We use the confines of the latest CDC guidelines that determine a close contact, whether the exposure occurred in a public setting, and the ability to effectively contact trace when determining issues of public exposure notices," said health department director Sylvia Forester. "If an individual tests positive and during our investigation they are unable to identify whom in the general public they had prolonged interactions with, less than 6 feet apart from — while they were infectious — then we issue statements in hopes that we can reach those unidentifiable individuals."
Forester called the notices a “reactive strategy,” adding that as long as the business is following health department guidelines for mitigation, the public shouldn’t be concerned with future visits to those establishments because "at that point, the positive individual has been identified and isolated."
Last Friday, the health department released a pair of public exposure notices, one for Southern Roots restaurant and the other for the AT&T store in Perryville.
The exposure window at Southern Roots was identified as between 3-9 p.m. on Aug. 1 and between 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Aug. 2. At the AT&T store, the window was between 11 a.m.-7 p.m. on Aug. 3.
Southern Roots reported in a Facebook post last week that the possible exposure was related to one if its employees and, in subsequent posts, related the restaurant’s plans to disinfect, clean and use social distancing measures in the dining room.
Previous notices have been issued for three bars and two other restaurants in Perryville.
The standard languages used in the health notices states that "the affected business has been contacted and is following health department recommendations in response to this exposure," but Forester said those decisions are largely up to the business owners.
"If these places don't social distance their tables and stuff or follow our recommendations, we can't go in and verify," Forester said.
