COVID Positive Employees Can Continue Working At Dignity Health

PHOENIX, AZ — Dignity Health workers who tested positive and have mild COVID-19 symptoms or no symptoms will be allowed to continue working, according to a memo sent to employees, the Associated Press reported.

System officials said this change was an enactment of the third tier of federal COVID-19 safety guidelines for health care workers in the face of sharply increasing cases in Arizona.

On Saturday, the Arizona Department of Health Services added 16,504 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 to its count, along with 88 deaths.
With the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus spreading like wildfire, cases in Arizona are spiking again like they haven't done since around a year ago, during what was previously the peak of the pandemic.
But now Jan. 4 sets the record for the day when the most positive tests were taken, at 17,916. The record for last year's peak was exactly a year prior, when 12,455 positive samples were collected.

“These guidelines allow COVID-19 positive health care personnel who are asymptomatic or improving with mild symptoms to work without a quarantine period,” Dignity Health officials said in a statement. “We are doing everything we can to ensure our employees can safely return to work while protecting our patients and staff from the transmissibility of COVID-19.”

Infected Dignity employees who feel well enough to work will have to get approval from their supervisor and wear a KN95 mask for the next 10 days, 12 News reported.

"Our health care workforce and hospitals need the community's support now more than ever," Dignity Health said in a statement. "The best way the public can support our staff and keep our hospitals resources available for those most in need is to follow public health mitigation protocols for COVID-19, get vaccinated and receive a booster vaccine as soon as you are eligible."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's most recent guidance for health care workers, updated Dec. 23, says that health care workers with mild to moderate symptoms should wait 7-10 days after the onset of symptoms to return to work, in addition to waiting 24 hours after their fever has broken and symptoms have improved.

The CDC recommends even those who are asymptomatic wait 7-10 days from their positive test to return to work.

Dignity Health operates St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix and the Surgery Center of Scottsdale, in addition to several other locations across the Valley, as well as Dignity Health Medical Group Liver Disease and Transplantation in Tucson.