COVID-19 and Contact Tracing | RI COVID-19 Information Portal

Four of Rhode Island Counties Now Considered Higher Risk Areas

Providence, Bristol, Kent, and Washington Counties are now considered higher risk areas according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID-19 Community Levels risk assessment. CDC determines risk level using three metrics: new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past seven days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past seven days.

If you are in a high-risk area, CDC recommends taking additional precautions, including:
• Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
• Wear a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status (including in K-12 schools and other indoor community settings).
• If you have household or social contact with someone at high risk, consider self-testing and wearing a mask when indoors with them.
• Get tested if you have symptoms or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

If you test positive:
• Talk to your doctor about treatment.
• Stay home and use this calculator to determine how long you need to quarantine or isolate.
• Use the RIDOH COVID-19 Survey to let people you were with know you tested positive.
• If you test yourself for COVID-19 at home, report your result to RIDOH at portal.ri.gov/s/selftest.

CDC’s full set of recommendation is available online.

Booster doses for children ages 5 through 11 

Children ages 5 through 11 may now get a booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine at least five months after their primary series. To find a Pfizer booster dose near you, please visit C19VaccineRI.org. Thank you for your patience while we update our online systems.

COVID-19 and Contact Tracing

Contact tracing is an important part of slowing the spread of COVID-19 in Rhode Island. Learn how it works and what you need to do if you receive a call from a contact tracer, as well as ways to tell the difference between real contact tracing calls and scams.

The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) is using new technology to ensure that close contacts exposed to COVID-19 are identified quickly. We have expanded our results portal to include a section where people who test positive for COVID-19 can enter their own close contacts and other demographic information.

If someone with COVID-19 has identified you as a close contact, you may get a text alert from 844-954-2046 that you may have been exposed. It’s important to follow the instructions in the text. Visit our quarantine and isolation page to learn more about who needs to quarantine and what to do if you or a close contact has COVID-19.

Learn about Contact Tracing

Contact tracing is an important part of slowing the spread of COVID-19 in Rhode Island. Learn how it works and what you need to do

Please see below for more information from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – this may take a moment to load.