The Saint Rocco Society Fort Lee is providing COVID-19 testing at their center at 110 Main Street with no out of pocket costs to participants. Testing is available Tuesdays & Thursdays from 10am-5pm, and Saturdays from 10am-4pm. Please register at https://testnj.online/reg.aspx (or scan the QR code on the flyer). Walk-ins are welcome, and those who prefer to stay in their car during their scheduled date/time can do so.
THE FORT LEE COVID-SAFE COMMUNITY PLEDGE
The Board of Health of the Borough of Fort Lee New Jersey offers this COVID-Safe Community Pledge (“The Pledge”) as a proposal to the people, institutions, businesses, and visitors to Fort Lee to encourage shared community awareness and actions to protect each other.
Why might The Pledge be useful, and why are we proposing it now? The Fort Lee community has done a great job at wearing masks, congregating outside rather than inside, keeping socially distanced from each other, maintaining personal hygiene (handwashing) and staying at home if sick. However, COVID-19 cases are significantly increasing across our community and New Jersey again, placing us into our second wave of community spread.
We have all heard of ‘COVID-fatigue’, and many of us are undoubtably experiencing it. The Board hopes that a community effort around The Pledge will increase and/or reestablish the awareness that we are all in this together and lessen that fatigue though solidarity.
With rising numbers of cases, it is vital that we work together as a community and each do EVERYTHING we can to prevent the spread.
We all want things to be “normal” again, but COVID-19 is still a threat, so when one of us engages in high risk activity, we make it less safe for everyone else. This is why it is so important for all of us to continue to follow COVID-19 safe practices.
We pledge to:
•Value the health of others as well as our own health as we go about our essential activities, such as healthcare visits, school, work, and business. In this way, these activities can be AS SAFE AS POSSIBLE for EVERYONE until there is a safe, effective and available vaccine to prevent infection, disease or serious outcomes of disease.
•Remain aware of the risk involved in the activities we engage in and understand that the risks we take do not only affect ourselves, but also affect our family, friends, teachers, businesses and other members of our community.
•Follow – with support from the Borough and institutions and individuals within –to the best of our ability national, State and local public health guidance related to COVID-19.
•Quarantine if exposed or if returning from travel in an area with high levels of the virus, as designated by the State of New Jersey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
•Staying home – isolating –if we become ill with signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19, or while waiting for a COVID-19 test result, until cleared to go out.
•Getting tested if having signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19 OR having been in close contact with someone with COVID-19.
•Wearing a mask/face-covering over both nose and mouth AT ALL TIMES when out and may be within 6 feet of others who are not members of our household.
•Practicing social distancing at all times when outside of our home.
•Cooperating honestly and openly with contact tracing to protect the health and safety of others in the community.
•Being respectful of others in our community and committing to COVID-safe etiquette in the community.
These actions, if committed to and followed by the large majority of our community, will have a measurable effect of decreasing exposure, infection, disease, disability….and death. While we cannot change the virus, we can and must change our behaviors to lessen its impact on ourselves and others.
THE ROAD BACK: EXPANDING TESTING CAPACITY AND CONTACT TRACING IN NJ
Two of the most critical steps to getting New Jersey on the road to recovery is our State's expanded testing program for COVID-19 and contact tracing strategy. Together, they are the key to saving lives and stopping the spread of this deadly disease.
Our first responders and health care workers are saving lives every day – and so can you. Your family, your friends, your neighbors – their lives are literally in your hands. So here's how you can do your part:
Get Tested – Testing is now available to all New Jerseyans. You could have COVID-19 and not even know it. Protect yourself and save the lives of your loved ones and neighbors by getting tested – especially if you have symptoms, have been in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, are an essential worker, or were recently in a large crowd where social distancing was hard to maintain.
Answer The Phone When A Contact Tracer Calls – You've been called because you tested positive for COVID-19 or may have come into close contact with someone who has. Contact tracers are calling with life-saving information that will keep you, your loved ones, and your community healthy.
For more information about how contact tracing works, how the state is expanding testing, steps they're taking to protect your privacy, and what you can do to help stop the spread of COVID-19, please visit the New Jersey COVID-19 Information Hub here.
We can fight this pandemic. We can find the virus and stop its spread with widespread testing and contact tracing.
