Olympic College – COVID Report & Plans

Eric Kneebone, Olympic College
April 3, 2020

Olympic College is located in Bremerton Washington, about 14 miles west of Seattle. The Kitsap County health department has ordered monitoring of all visitors and staff on campus, with screening questionnaires being filled out electronically and submitted for supervisor review. This applies to contractors as well. Any person with symptoms has to remain at home for 72 hours after all symptoms cease without pharmaceutical intervention. We had an infectious disease plan roughed out and in place before we had to use it, and it was tested with a hand, foot, and mouth outbreak in childcare. This plan will be revised with what we learned, however we never had to go beyond Level 2 operations due to direct impacts. March 3 EOC went to Level 1 operations and preplans were activated. The full EOC met twice a day until students were off campus.

Disinfectant was deployed to classrooms and labs; frequencies were increased for public areas. Signage was deployed and more signage developed as needed. Facilities operations were mostly routine except for custodial response which focused on hygienic cleaning operations. Level 2 was initiated in mid-march. During this time claims of illness were aggressively handled both by employees in the affected areas (hourly wipe downs of surfaces) and Custodial staff. We have a door hanger in case of a confirmed positive infection, and have added a 24 hour delay before entering any area with a confirmed positive. All classrooms are in lockdown mode and require security intervention to allow access. Disinfection with Oxivir, mechanical removal, and dry saturated steam as needed is followed by ATP testing to check biofilm levels. Attached is our door hanger for classrooms – when the top card is removed it is assumed the classroom is no longer disinfected.

As of 3 April 2020 Custodial operations are returning to normal operations (Business as Unusual) with primary disinfection of all public areas having been completed and carpet cleaning, floor maintenance, and detail cleaning becoming a focus of crews. As the next quarter begins support of on campus operations will be the focus, with support of classrooms used for online lectures being an identified target. Restrooms are reduced to one per building to allow limited staff to cover campus. Cooperation between IT (and support with PPE and disinfection equipment for technology) and Custodial is continuing as we go to routine maintenance. The majority of Custodial staff is on a voluntary 3 days on/2 days remote assignment on staggered schedules. Remote assignment work for custodians is online training both for custodial and safety topics. Some custodians have elected to work half days, and some wish to remain full time, and a few have been placed on full time remote assignment due to health conditions or vulnerability of themselves or immediate family members.

Door Hangar

Infectious Disease Plan

There will be more in the coming days as the stay-at-home order has been extended into May.

Visit our web page for COVID-19.