SPOKANE, Wash. — There's a new class rolling out from Community Colleges of Spokane, which is aimed at helping local businesses and organizations develop their own internal contact tracing strategy.
The class is listed on the CCS web portal as "Contact Tracing," but rather than teaching how to specifically contact trace, the four-hour class offers strategies and resources to help participants create an internal plan that can keep their internal and external customers safe.
Community Colleges of Spokane has hired Chris Munoz, a City of Spokane Firefighter, to teach the Zoom class.
"If you had one to two individuals that are affected, a good plan could help mitigate that expansion of that spread of the virus," Munoz said. "So maybe you only have one to two people who end up getting sick or exposed, instead of that evolving into now you've got 10, 14, 20 people that are now sick, and that has a significant impact on these businesses and organizations."
Munoz worked with CCS to develop this class after helping to manage the pandemic from Spokane's own Fire Operations Center.
"We'll give them examples as to what the fire department has done here locally to mitigate some of these risks, and just getting some of those ideas and things that have worked," Munoz said. "Anyone taking the class can maybe find out if that's going to work for their organization and they can apply that if they think that's something that's necessary."
The specific listing for class states that participants will learn the following:
- What the real intent of contact tracing within an organization is and how your work supports the regional work of the Spokane Regional Health District to prevent further spread of COVID-19.
- Decision tree matrix for COVID-19 exposures.
- Communicating and supporting employees, families and customers if quarantine is necessary.
- How to organize a safe return to work after a COVID-19 case from a previously contagious employee, in compliance with Centers for Disease Control and SRHD guidance.
For more information, email the CCS Continuing Education office at ce@ccs.spokane.edu or call 509-279-6144.
The Zoom class will take place on Friday, Oct. 9 from 8 a.m. to noon.
Cost for the class will be $95 and registration lasts through October 7.
Those who are interested can sign up online.