Guidance for critical health services during an Omicron outbreak

Included in this update:

• Definition of ‘critical workers’ and ‘critical health services’ in the context of the Omicron response
• Access to rapid antigen tests (RATs) for critical health services
• Guidance for managing COVID-19 healthcare staff exposures at work
• Guidance for situations where healthcare workers are COVID-19 cases or contacts during an Omicron outbreak
• Additional guidance to support implementation of the guidance for managing COVID-19 healthcare staff exposures at work
• Templates for exposure event management

Now that New Zealand has transitioned to the COVID-19 Protection Framework, (also known as the ‘traffic light’ system) from the previous Alert Level System, the day-to-day operations of health and disability services have changed when there is COVID-19 in the community.
Under Alert Level 4 in the previous system, there were stay-at-home orders and lockdowns, where all non-essential health and disability services were required to close. The new COVID-19 Protection Framework does not rely on lockdowns, and all health and disability services and their workers can continue to operate under the COVID-19 Protection Framework, critical or not, during green, amber and red. In response to community transmission of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the Ministry of Health has released a three-phase response.

Click here for the full update

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