UC Davis has set up a COVID-19 Daily Symptom Survey and is advising departments and units of their roles in the process and the availability of resources to implement it.

The survey is required of everyone — students, employees and visitors — entering university-managed facilities on the Davis campus and at other locations. It replaces a temporary symptom checker that the campus was using.

FAQ ON FLU SHOT MANDATE

All UC faculty, staff and students must have influenza vaccinations by Nov. 1, under an executive order from the Office of the President. Monday (Aug. 24), UCOP posted an FAQ on the flu vaccination mandate. You can read it here.

“This tool meets our public health requirements and serves as a daily reminder to pay attention to any symptoms, and to stay home if you feel sick,” said Eric Kvigne, associate vice chancellor for Safety Services. “You can’t ignore the symptoms when you see them every day in the survey.”

See below for list of symptoms and how the survey works.

“Other” locations where the survey applies include university-managed, off-campus housing; leased facilities; and remote sites — but not UC Davis Health, which has its own symptom-monitoring procedures.

The task of implementing the Daily Symptom Survey has been assigned to departments and units, to be incorporated into their Campus Ready worksite plans.

Safety Services invites worksite planners to a webinar from 2:30 to 4 p.m. next Tuesday, Sept. 1, to learn more about the Daily Symptom Survey, and how to implement it and monitor compliance. Sign up here for the webinar.

The Daily Symptom Survey webpage offers several options for implementation:

• Close access at all facility entry points except one, where you assign an employee to verify Daily Symptom Survey compliance prior to allowing entry.
• Allow open access to facility but require Daily Symptom Survey verification at internal locations (e.g., reception desk, individual lab).
• Ask employees to forward their Daily Symptom Survey verifications to a supervisor’s email or another central email.
• You may consider providing colored stickers that individuals can display to signal Symptom Survey verification.

A toolkit includes guides, sample communications, printable signage and more.

Departments and units have the option of including temperature checks, either administered by staff or asking people to do a self-check at a designated station. Materials for implementing temperature checks will be added to the toolkit soon (including instructions, sanitization details, equipment needs).

THE SURVEY

If you are an employee or student with Kerberos credentials, you will be answering questions on a Qualtrics web application accessible by desktop and mobile device. The survey should take roughly 30 seconds to complete, after which you will learn if you are “approved” or “not approved” to enter.

The survey is here: SymptomSurvey.ucdavis.edu (an address you may want to bookmark). It’s available only to people with Kerberos sign-in credentials.

A staff member may pose the survey questions to you instead, say, if you do not have Kerberos credentials, or if your smartphone is out of power (or you left it at home). Other alternatives may be developed as departments and units fine-tune their processes.

Symptom data from alternative survey methods will not be retained. Symptom data gathered online will be purged from the Qualtrics app within seven days — and the campus is working to make this immediate. Contact information and survey outcome (approved or not approved) is sent to the Cognos reporting tool; symptom data is not sent to Cognos.

The first time you use the app, you may need to enter your name, unit and email address, but after that the survey will fill in the information for you — although you will need to check you affiliation daily (student, employee or other).

The symptoms

The survey then asks you to check all symptoms you have experienced in the last 24 hours, starting with:

• Fever higher than 100.4 Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius

As for the other symptoms, respond “yes” only for symptoms that are new — that is, not from a known or chronic illness.

• Chills or shaking
• Cough
• Shortness of breath/difficulty breathing
• Loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Runny nose/sinus congestion
• Diarrhea
• Muscle pain/body ache
• Headache
• Unusual fatigue
• Eye redness with or without discharge
• Nausea or vomiting

After you check off the symptoms you may have, or after you check “none of the above,” the survey will ask if you have tested positive for COVID-19 within the last 14 days, and if, within the last 14 days, you have had close contact (closer than 6 feet for greater than 15 minutes) with a COVID-19-positive person.

You will be asked to certify your answers are true and correct — after which the survey will end with a page indicating “approved” or “not approved,” with the date and time. You are advised to capture an image of this page, or print it, because you will need to present it at facility access points. Note: You will also receive your “approved”-“not approved” status by email.

If you are ‘not approved’

Those who are “not approved” must remain off campus and may not enter university facilities (with the exception of Student Health and Counseling Services/Occupational Health for treatment, or their on-campus residence), until they have received a medical release from their physician. This guidance is provided in the emailed “not approved” notification.

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