View the entire newsletter for more articles: 2022 – NJAC County Biz – January
by Kate Brickman, Director of Communications for Vault Health
As we near the two-year anniversary of the first case of COVID in the United States and face an imminent wave of the new Omicron variant, the need for reliable testing infrastructure continues to be paramount.
New Jersey residents can be grateful that Governor Murphy and Health Commissioner Persichili have invested in a program to provide easy and reliable access to free COVID testing, whenever they need it. The new at-home testing program launched this month, providing at-home COVID-19 saliva testing for any person who believes they need to be tested, with or without symptoms, offers tests to residents at no cost. Vault’s PCR test is the gold standard in testing, providing the most accurate results to people of all ages. The tests can be used by anyone capable of spitting into a tube and are delivered right to your door, with quick results.
For residents, it means being able to easily show proof of a negative COVID test, whether required for traveling, work, or attending an event. It means being able to test yourself and your family before that holiday gathering and after traveling, before returning to the classroom or workplace, and when you’re not sure whether you’ve come down with a cold, or something more serious. As positivity rises, it’s more important than ever to have easy access to reliable testing.
For public health officials, this program also offers access to critical information used to learn more about the spread of the virus and how to stop it.
As Omicron – the latest variation of COVID-19 – spreads across the world, epidemiologists are relying on PCR tests to examine the genetic makeup of the virus and its rate of spread. While antigen or rapid tests offer an immediate positive or negative result (particularly useful for people with symptoms who need an immediate answer), they provide no information to public health about how the multiple variants are spreading across communities. Vault’s PCR test makes this genetic analysis possible, which is how the first cases of Omicron were detected in the United States and how public health officials will study this new strain to learn how transmissible it is and how it affects vaccinated and unvaccinated people differently.
Beyond the new at-home program, available to every New Jersey resident, Vault continues to meet the testing needs of employers, overly strained health care systems, sports teams and many others by providing both rapid tests for the immediate responses needed, as well as the confirmatory PCR testing, for the extra measure of accuracy and continued benefit to public health officials.
Vault can also help members of NJAC by testing unvaccinated employees and collecting vaccination data on your entire workforce, if desired or required.
Vault’s new COVID Compliance Solution surveys employees and assesses who is vaccinated and who isn’t, and collects the appropriate verification data. For those employees who are not vaccinated, they’re automatically enrolled in regular COVID testing, whether done from the comfort of their home or through a work-sponsored testing event.
At Vault Health, we continue to be on the front lines of the pandemic and we’re grateful for our many governmental and public health partners who empower us to fight the disease alongside their communities.