Watitoh Summer 2022 COVID FAQs

Arrive healthy! This is the most important step in successfully running Watitoh this summer.  We are counting on you, our Watitoh Families, to be vigilant about minimizing your camper’s chances of exposure, especially in the ten days leading up to arrival.  A COVID case at home will affect your household, but a COVID case at camp will affect our entire community.

As we announced over the winter, all campers and staff must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.  Please confirm your camper is up-to-date and we have the most recent COVID vaccination card.   Up-to-date includes a booster at least 5 months after completing their primary series.  If you have any questions, please contact Drew.

Beginning on Tuesday, June 14th:

• Avoid high-density settings or situations where he/she cannot limit exposure, including sleep-overs. If this cannot be avoided, please have your camper wear a mask to minimize chances of exposure.
• Avoid unnecessary travel. If you are traveling, please use all available resources to limit exposure, such as masking while traveling or when indoor settings are unavoidable.
• Please don’t take any risks! Know your Covid-19 community level, follow best practices, and when in doubt, ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”  The world may be “open” and yet please remember how different managing a Covid infection would be in a dense living environment like at camp compared to your home.
• If your camper becomes ill, please let us know so that we can work together to get him/her to camp as quickly as possible.  Potentially delaying his/her arrival is certainly disappointing, but not as disappointing as bringing a communicable disease into camp that could derail everyone’s summer.

We highly recommend you start testing your camper 10 days before their departure for camp.  If they test positive during this time, quarantine could begin before camp starts and not have an impact on their summer.

We are requiring two COVID tests prior to camp arrival: 

June 22nd: All campers will need to have a PCR test administered by a health professional on Wednesday, June 22nd. This lab-based PCR test can be taken at a local pharmacy, doctor’s office, walk-in clinic, etc. We will also accept the Vault spit test or equivalent thereof.  Please make a reservation at your local clinic, or order your test now.

Results should be emailed to office@campwatitoh.com as soon as received.

June 24th: All campers must take a Rapid-Antigen test at home. Results should be emailed to office@campwatitoh.com.

On arrival day, all campers will take a Rapid-Antigen test.  Any camper who tests positive will need to be picked up within 12 hours and quarantine at home according the the CDC guidelines.

We may test campers and staff again within the first few days of camp or as appropriate in consultation with our medical team.

If your camper has tested positive for COVID after March 27th, 2022, he or she is exempt from the above pre-camp testing protocol. If your camper is exempt, please email info@campwatitoh.com with one of the following:

• PCR Lab Result of the Positive COVID test
• A letter/email to/from your school nurse/principal
• If you do not have either of the above options, please email drew@campwatitoh.com.

Regardless, please continue to be vigilant about minimizing your family’s exposure to COVID.  A COVID case at home will affect your household, but a COVID case at camp will affect our entire community.

If your child’s PCR test or rapid antigen test is positive, please call us immediately.  They can come to camp upon:

• Completion of their 5 day quarantine (day of test is day zero)
• Symptom and fever free (without fever reducing medication) for 24 hours
• Final consultation and approval from Britton or Drew
• Further testing may be required to return to camp
• Due to the high-risk nature of COVID spreading in our dense living community, siblings who have not had COVID within the last 90 days will need to remain home for the quarantine period, regardless of their test results.

If your camper has been in direct contact with a person who tests positive for COVID within 10 days prior to June 25th, including inside of your home, please contact Britton or Drew to discuss your camper’s potential delayed arrival procedures.

Camp starts once your camper boards the bus, flight or enters camp!  As added precautions, regardless of local regulations, masks will be required on the bus, in the airports and on the plane.

For those who are arriving to camp via car, specific instructions will be emailed in June. Please be aware that similar to last summer, parents may not be allowed out of the vehicles to limit our exposure.

• Britton or Drew will notify the parents of the COVID-positive camper as soon as a positive test is confirmed.
• The sick camper will remain comfortably resting in our COVID cabin and cared for by our medical team until a parent or guardian arrives at camp.  He/she will need to be picked up from camp within 12 hours and preferably much sooner.
• A camper may return to camp upon:
  • Completion of their 5 day quarantine (day of test is day zero)
  • Symptom and fever free (without fever reducing medication) for 24 hours
  • Final consultation and approval from Britton or Drew
• Further testing may be required to return to camp
• While at camp masking and outdoor eating procedures may be in place for up to 5 additional days.

Our goal is to keep COVID out of camp, but realistically, this is a challenging task. If COVID does infect some of our camp population, we’ll manage it as best we can. Because of the nature of our sleepaway camp environment, communicable diseases have a likelihood of spreading faster than in our normal lives.

Additional testing, masking, and other restrictions will be considered if we feel that circumstances require that to control spread in our community.

You can depend on us to be open and honest in all our communications. Please do not listen to rumors and CALL Britton or Drew with any questions or concerns about what is happening at Watitoh.

• If YOUR camper tests positive for COVID, you will receive a call from Britton or Drew.
• We will communicate with you via email if a camper in your child’s cabin tests positive for COVID. Please note that due to HIPPA laws we cannot share the name of the individual or any medical information (such as symptoms or testing) other than that he or she tested positive.
• The benefit requiring all of our campers and staff to be up to date with vaccines, campers and staff will not need to quarantine.  They will be re-screened daily for symptoms.
• Additional safeguards such as masking indoors, eating outside as a cabin and testing may be considered.
• Any staff that is not able to get picked up or travel home, will remain in isolation until they have been cleared by our camp doctor and/or finished the CDC recommended isolation.

Yes! We have a busy schedule of off-camp trips and intercamps and will reserve the right to modify our schedule in the event that COVID numbers in our area increase. We are also focusing our trip program on more outdoor activities and less indoor field trips. Masks may be required if we go to an indoor location and/or we attend an intercamp where that is required by the host camp.

We are hoping to host an in-person Visiting Day on July 16th.  Our goal has, and always will be, to maintain the health and safety of our campers while mitigating our risk as best we can. We will continue to assess the benefits of visiting day verse the risks of bringing COVID onto camp by monitoring the positivity rate in our camp family communities etc. We ask that you be patient with us as we take our time in making the right decision for Watitoh.   We will provide an update around the middle of June.

If a normal Visiting Day is to occur, please note the following may be required:

• Limiting attendance to parents and siblings only
• A pre-Visiting Day testing protocol that may include a PCR and/or rapid antigen test
• Masking for all visitors
• A shortened Visiting Day

At this time, we will be scheduling our typical prospective camper tours and offering two Dream Days on July 9th and July 30th. These families will follow a COVID protocol that reflects the positivity rate closer to camp and will remain masked if interacting with our campers and staff.

This summer we will NOT be hosting grandparents for lunch visits and we look forward to hosting grandparents in future years. 

Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) are proven to prevent the spread of any illness. NPI’s and Cleaning played a big role.

NPIs that we plan to use:

• Increased use of outdoor spaces when available
• Thorough cleaning of high touch/ high frequency areas
• Maximizing the use of outdoor and well-ventilated areas of camp
• Cleaning:
  • We will be using EPA approved Cleaner on high touched areas throughout the day.
  • Electrostatic Backpack Sprayer – Electrostatic sprayers use positive and negative charges to make disinfecting solutions electrostatically stick to targeted surfaces.  The disinfectant wraps around and clings to the entire surface – touch free which allows our Clean Team to simply point and spray for complete disinfection. Electrostatic sprayers will be used all throughout camp for sanitation.
  • The Clean Team will clean bunks daily – consisting of of a wipe down/disinfect of all highly used areas such as, but not limited to: door handles, sinks, toilets, and showers.  This works in conjunction with the cleaning done by the bunks campers/staff.
  • All indoor and outdoor common areas that do not fall under a specific program area will be cleaned daily by the Clean Team.
  • The office staff will clean high touch areas daily (door knobs, printers, copiers, common area phones and desks).  Each person will be responsible to clean their own phone and computer.
  • Program Areas – Specific area staff will clean and disinfect after each cohort

Other things to note:

• We will continue to use only bottle fill water fountains this summer – no water fountains
• Added hand sanitizer locations around camp.
• Added fans and ventilation to our indoor spaces.