Businesses are not required to inform customers or close when an employee tests positive for COVID-19 - Lawrence Journal-World

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photo by: Kevin Anderson/Journal-World File Photo

The Lawrence-Douglas County health department's home at the Community Health Facility, 200 Maine St., is pictured in this file photo from July 2010.

Businesses at which an employee has tested positive for COVID-19 are not required to notify customers or temporarily close shop, the public health department confirmed this week.

Dan Partridge, director of Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, said in an email to the Journal-World that a business has the right to choose whether to notify customers. It is up to the health department to attempt to reach potentially exposed members of the public.

The decision whether to inform customers via public messaging “is determined by the degree of risk associated with the individuals testing positive for COVID-19 and the degree to which we have confidence that all exposed individuals have been identified,” Partridge said. “In most cases, our interviews identify all exposure risks – we get in touch with the individuals, though — and further notification is not required.”

It is only in instances in which the health department thinks it has not been able to identify all exposed individuals that a public notice will be issued. Thus far, the health department has issued only three public notices: about the June outbreak at The Jayhawk Cafe, also known as The Hawk, 1340 Ohio St, and two notices informing May 31 protest participants and late June customers of Bullwinkles Bar, 1344 Tennessee St., to self-monitor for symptoms.

Businesses are required to close operations only if Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health orders that a category of businesses must close and their operation falls under that category. An example of this would be the county’s decision to temporarily shut down bars. Other than this circumstance, the health department has no authority to force an individual business to close, and businesses may decide whether to remain open if an employee has tested positive for COVID-19.

“LDCPH uses its authority to prospectively close categories of businesses based upon the risk of disease spread but does not retrospectively close a unique business based upon employees testing positive,” Partridge wrote.

Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health spokesperson George Diepenbrock added that when people test positive for COVID-19, they are interviewed by a disease investigator who will issue a letter from the local health officer with the date of the onset of their symptoms and the end of their isolation date. It is up to individuals whether they wish to disclose that letter to their employer.

Individuals must isolate if they test positive for COVID-19 and must quarantine if they are determined to be a close contact, Diepenbrock said.

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to show that three public notices have been issued.

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