Capital Camps Families,
This letter shares our 2023 COVID policies for Capital Camps as of June 6th, 2023.
Our goal, as always, is to provide a healthy and safe camp experience. Additionally, we want to run camp this summer with as little disruption due to COVID as possible. We also know that all policies and procedures may change as conditions evolve.
Our professional staff, medical committee, and onsite medical team have been working together to craft a policy that is medically sound and works for our residential camp setting.
Camp is a different environment than home and school. We are a close community of approximately 600 people at a time and campers live in close quarters in bunks. We have campers and staff with varied health needs and challenges. For this reason, we continue to strongly recommend the initial COVID vaccination series and one bivalent booster prior to camp.
Once we are at camp, and because COVID is no longer as serious a threat as it once was, we want our campers and staff to be able to fully enjoy camp and for COVID to not be a part of our daily experience. We are asking all campers to rapid test within 24 hours prior to camp arrival so that we don’t have COVID positive campers coming to camp. Some campers and families may wish, in addition to this requirement, to start testing in advance of the 24 hours to identify COVID sooner. This year, we have eliminated the step of uploading your test results prior to arrival. Should your camper test positive, please notify Camp. After that, we will not be testing (except as noted below) or masking at camp. Note: All summer staff will participate in COVID testing during Staff Training in advance of camper arrival.
For all sorts of illnesses, our general approach will be to continue to follow our established criteria for when campers and staff need to be admitted (i.e., stay overnight) into our health center (the MIRP). Generally, this would be when they have a fever, significant respiratory symptoms, or are experiencing diarrhea or vomiting. As we have always done in the past, if a camper is admitted into the MIRP and stays overnight, we inform the parents. When these symptoms resolve, the camper returns to the camp program. If apparent symptoms and clinical judgment dictate that a COVID test is warranted to choose a treatment course, medical staff will perform the test and proceed accordingly.
This approach allows our medical staff to treat campers based on current and best medical practices. It also reduces campers’ anxiety about whether to be tested or whether someone they know has COVID. If you are healthy enough and able to participate in camp, then you can. If you are not well enough to participate, we will do what we have done in the past for campers who are ill.
If your camper tests positive during their summer session, Camp will reach out to discuss the isolation plan. Worth noting, while the remainder of the cabin will be continually monitored for symptoms, tests will only be administered to apparent symptomatic campers based on clinical judgment.
Returning to our prior practices, Camp will reach out only to camper families with a sick child to discuss their health plan. As they say, no news is good news.
We are looking forward to a joyous summer at camp – filled with friends, laughter, learning and fun!
,כל טוב (all the best)
Havi Goldscher, CEO
Lisa Handelman, Camp Director