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Written by:
7/26/2021 3:16 PM 

The Vashon Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), Emergency Operations Center (EOC), and VashonBePrepared are working closely with an island business to contain a potentially significant COVID exposure event.

An employee at Fair Isle Animal Clinic tested positive for COVID yesterday, Sunday, July 25th.  As a safety measure, Fair Isle has now taken a number of steps to make sure everyone stays safe. For example, Fair Isle had reopened its doors a few weeks ago but today reverted to curbside service as a way to prevent spread of COVID.

"There's nothing more important than keeping our patients, clients and staff safe. We are here for the health of Vashon and its animals," said Dr. Dana Ness, the owner of Fair Isle Animal Clinic. "We are following all guidelines and are very grateful to MRC, the EOC and VashonBePrepared for their technical assistance in this effort and their many months of experience with the pandemic. We are especially grateful for the way the people of Vashon are pulling together to support everyone affected by this pandemic."

A plan has been developed that should allow the clinic to continue serving its patients on a full normal schedule using the curbside service strategy. Dr. Ness indicated they will be trying to maintain their traditional 24 hour on-call service but it may be limited at times by circumstances until all the testing and other safety measures are in place.  Clients will be able to reach after hours triage advice by calling the main clinic number, however critical patients may need to go directly off island to receive care at regional emergency hospitals.

Fair Isle employees who might have been exposed are being tested at Fair Isle today by MRC volunteers and samples are being rushed to the lab. It's a busy veterinary practice, so it's likely that some people have potentially been exposed.  Fortunately, all of the patient names and contact information are on record. So, every potentially exposed person is being contacted by Fair Isle staff and put in touch with the MRC contact tracing team.

Anyone who was in Fair Isle last week on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday should be on watch for that call. Those are the only days of potential exposure based on the MRC contact tracing analysis. The infected employee was NOT one of the veterinarians.  If you were at Fair Isle on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, and have not received a call by 8:00pm this evening, please call the Vashon MRC hotline to get further advice: (844) 469-4554.

The infected employee worked four days last week thinking some mild symptoms were only a cold since the person was fully vaccinated. Vashon MRC urges anyone with symptoms to get tested right away. That's especially important now because the highly infectious delta variant has become the most common form of COVID infection.

Please do not call Fair Isle or the MRC hotline unless you have specific reason to believe you might have been exposed or have symptoms. It is important to keep the phone lines open while everyone works to deal with this situation.

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