Wisconsin Provides Recommendations for Routine Testin

DHS Logo Original 07/11/2018

Division of Quality Assurance: Assisted Living

Attn: Community-Based Residential Facilities, Adult Family Homes, and Residential Care Apartment Complexes

Wisconsin Provides Recommendations for Routine Testing

Routine testing of unvaccinated individuals should be based on the extent of the virus in the community. Fully vaccinated individuals do not have to be routinely tested. Facilities should use their county positivity rate in the prior week as the trigger for routine unvaccinated testing frequency. Reports of COVID-19 county-level positivity rates are available on the following website https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/local.htm.

The current Assisted Living Testing Guidance document recommends that small CBRFs (less than 9 beds) and AFHs test their residents and staff on a routine basis. Due to the small population and close community of these facility types, it is still recommended to test residents and staff, but now only unvaccinated residents and staff routinely based on county positivity. For medium (9-20) CBRFs and large (21 or more) CBRFs, as well as the RCACs, the frequency of routine unvaccinated staff testing is based on county positivity.

Testing is recommended for anyone with COVID-19 symptoms and higher-risk exposures and required for a facility-wide outbreak testing regardless of vaccination status.

Minimum Routine Screening Testing Recommendations for Staff and Residents at small CBRFs and AFH’s are Based Off of the County Positivity Rate:

  • Less than 5%, test unvaccinated staff and unvaccinated residents monthly
  • 5-9%, test unvaccinated staff and unvaccinated residents weekly
  • 10% or greater, test unvaccinated staff and unvaccinated residents twice weekly

Minimum Routine Screening Testing Recommendations for Staff at all other Assisted Living Facility Types Based Off of the County Positivity Rate:

  • Less than 5%, test unvaccinated staff monthly
  • 5-9%, test unvaccinated staff weekly
  • 10% or greater, test unvaccinated staff twice weekly

“Fully vaccinated” means a person who is more than two weeks following receipt of the second dose in a 2-dose series, or more than two weeks following receipt of one dose of a single-dose vaccine.

Ordering of testing supplies based on your county positivity rate can be placed through the ordering website.

If you have questions regarding this information, please contact the COVID Testing Task Force at WICovidTest@wi.gov.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will continue to provide allocations of BinaxNOW to qualified nursing homes and long-term care facilities through the end of August/into September depending on how long the supply lasts. Wisconsin will also continue to support testing beyond June.