IF YOU ARE FULLY VACCINATED
CDC has updated its guidance for people who are fully vaccinated. See Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People.
IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR SCHOOLS
CDC recommends schools continue to use the current COVID-19 prevention strategies for the 2020-2021 school year. Learn more
Important update: Healthcare facilities
CDC has updated select ways to operate healthcare systems effectively in response to COVID-19 vaccination. Learn more
UPDATE
Getting vaccinated prevents severe illness, hospitalizations, and death. Unvaccinated people should get vaccinated and continue masking until they are fully vaccinated. With the Delta variant, this is more urgent than ever. CDC has updated guidance for fully vaccinated people based on new evidence on the Delta variant.
UPDATE
Given new evidence on the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant, CDC has updated the guidance for fully vaccinated people. CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status. Children should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with layered prevention strategies in place.

COVID-19 Rapid Response Team Guidance

COVID-19 Rapid Response Team Guidance

Establishment and Management of Public Health Rapid Response Teams for Disease Outbreaks: COVID-19 Disease Supplement​

Updated Mar. 1, 2021

Introduction

Since the first report of a cluster of cases of acute respiratory illness in China, the current coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) has spread globally exacting a huge toll on individuals, families, communities, and societies across the world, resulting in a World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of a pandemic 1, 2. The COVID-19 response has highlighted the need for a multidisciplinary public health approach—with surveillance, laboratory and health care systems/networks, among others, intersecting and coordinating as part of a larger public health emergency response system. Public health rapid response teams (RRTs) are one mechanism of a larger emergency response strategy that can be utilized in a COVID-19 outbreak to ensure a fast and effective response 3, 4, 5. Reducing the time from disease detection to response limits transmission and potential population mortality and morbidity 2, 4. Thus, as countries seek to maximize their response capacity to COVID-19, this document provides guidance to streamline the RRT operations during a COVID-19 response outside the United States 6. This document aims to guide United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) staff providing technical assistance for COVID-19 RRT capacity development at the national and sub-national levels during an active COVID-19 response 7 .

This is a disease specific addendum to the general guidance document for RRT establishment and management: “Guidance for U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Staff for the Establishment and Management of Public Health Rapid Response Teams for Disease Outbreaks”, hereafter referred to as the “RRT General Guidance” 3 .

Figure 1 shows RRT Non-Emergency and Emergency Phase operations related exercises in training, activation, readiness, pre-deployment, rostering, deployment (including communication and reporting, monitoring and evalutation, and team evalution and demobilization), staffing, SOP Development and Improvement Planning, and post deployment.

Figure 1: RRT Non-Emergency and Emergency Phase operations

The RRT General Guidance outlines in detail the underlying RRT systems and processes, including the standard operating procedures (SOPs), requisite for an effective and efficient RRT.

CDC staff should adapt this disease specific supplement according to a country’s emergency response context and existing resources. The relevant RRT emergency processes outlined here assume coordination with and incorporation into a larger response coordination unit (i.e., a public health emergency management program using an Incident Management System (IMS) or country-equivalent system); whenever possible, this guidance should be used to strengthen the existing response system rather than introduce new components. Due to the current status of the outbreak globally, this supplement is focused solely on COVID-19 considerations during the RRT Emergency Phase and its associated processes (Figure 1); Although this supplement incorporates key considerations of the RRT Non-Emergency Phase, it assumes aspects of this phase were established prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.

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For those countries without a functional RRT established prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, please look for this icon (to the left) throughout the supplement for guidance on prioritizing RRT capacity efforts during an active emergency.