How to handle COVID-19 symptoms and infection among students

Students with symptoms of COVID-19 may not come to campus. Students who experiencing symptoms while on campus should go home as quickly as possible. The university may direct students with obvious symptoms to leave campus.

Students with symptoms must follow the health authorities' guidelines for people with symptoms of Covid-19. 

The university will only take further preventive steps in regard to students with symptoms in the event that they test positive.    

The students are strongly encouraged to inform the university about the Covid-19 infection. This will enable the university to take steps to prevent the spread of infection via contact tracing. Studies administration should be contacted via the AU coronavirus form.

Students who test positive after taking an antigen test (rapid test/self-test) must do the following:

• Follow the health authorities' guidelines on self-isolation and take a follow-up PCR test as soon as possible to confirm the results of the rapid test. 
• Inform studies administration about the positive test result after the antigen test. Fill out the AU coronavirus form to alert studies administration.
• As stated in the health authorities' guidelines, you will then get a call from a member of the contact tracing team (a unit under the Danish Patient Safety Authority). You also have the option of contacting the coronavirus contact tracing team at tel. nr.  3232 0511. The contact tracing team can put in requisition for people who need a follow-up PCR test which puts them at the front of the queue for PCR tests.
• If your follow-up PCR test is negative and you do not have symptoms, you can end your self-isolation. Please inform studies administration about the results of the PCR test.
• If the PCR test positive, see below.
  
  

Students who test positive from a PCR test must:

• Follow the health authorities' guidelines for people who have tested positive for Covid-19. 
• Fill out and submit a coronavirus form to studies administration. If you are already in dialogue with studies administration following a positive antigen test, you can simply continue this dialogue, and you do not need to submit a new form.

In the event of a positive antigen test, the local infection response team must proceed as follows:

• Contact the student and get an overview of classes, etc. the student participated in prior to testing positive.
• If there is one positive antigen test in one core group/in the class, contact tracing should be delayed until the results of the  follow-up PCR test are available.
• If there is more than one person with a positive antigen test in a core group/in a class, contact tracing must begin immediately – i.e. before the results of the follow-up PCR test become available.
  
  

In the event of a positive PCR test, the infection response team must proceed as follows:

• Contact the student and help them identify close contacts on campus, as well as proving instructions on notifying them.
• Establish an overview of classes, etc., which the student participated prior to testing positive, if this was not already done in connection with a positive antigen test.
• Notify the following early in the process: The dean, relevant heads of department/school
• Inform Lea Sofie Staunsager, administrative officer at the Rector's Office, lss@au.dk, and Sys Christina Vestergaard, head of press and communication, scv@au.dk, about the case of infection. Please specify at which degree programme and semester the case of infection has occurred, and class number if applicable, as well as information about whether students/employees at AU are identified as ‘close contacts’. It must not be possible to link the information about the infected person to a specific individual, and if there are less than 10 students in the class, the class number should not be specified.
• inform affected classes, classmates, etc., with due regard for GDPR and protection of personal data.
• ensure that contact surfaces, etc. in affected rooms are cleaned immediately as needed.
• assess whether there are grounds for additional measures to prevent infection in light of the individual case.
• register the case in the AU COVID-19 register.

As a general rule, no additional measures will be taken in response to individual cases (such as cancellations, sending classes/employees home, etc.). However, multiple simultaneous cases may indicate an outbreak that necessitates such measures.

When deciding whether to take additional measures, the following applies:

• The local response team is responsible for assessment of the situation and the decision, in consultation with the dean.
• Any additional measures must be coordinated with local line managers, the rector/pro-rector and the central communication and press office.

Situations that are not confined to one faculty (because of shared facilities, co-taught subjects, etc.) should be handled by the rector/pro-rector, who will make a decision in consultation with the relevant deans.

When sending students home, the following applies:

• The students are to be sent home for one week from the day on which the decision to send them home is made. 

Contract tracing is based on the Danish Health Authority’s definition of ‘close contacts’.

AU’s responsibility in this connection is to assist infected students in determining whether they have close contacts among their fellow students or teachers. Internal contact tracing at AU must take place in consultation with the infected student, who is, as a rule, responsible for contacting their close contacts in collaboration with the Danish Patient Safety Authority.

See the Danish Health Authority 's definition of close contacts (p. 7 in the pamphlet).

In connection with going to classes, using study spaces, and so on, students typically have a wide variety of more peripheral interactions with others that do not qualify as close contacts. For this reason, AU encourages all students to use the official contact tracing app [smitte|stop], which is designed to support more distant/peripheral contract tracing.