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211 help line to assist people with COVID-19, school questions in Allegheny Co.

ALLEGHENY CO., Pa. — The Allegheny County Health Department announced Wednesday that additional services will be provided through the United Way’s 211 help line.

The help line will now be able to assist in answering COVID-19 questions and providing consistent guidance and information to healthcare providers, school administrators and parents.

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According to a release from health officials, this service adds nurses to 211′s resources to “bolster the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s ability to connect people to services and information they need during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Calls to 211 for the nurses will be routed through a triage system. The call center will take down a person’s information and provide it to an on-call nurse to return the call.

You can also text questions to 211 by using 898-211, or submit questions with the online form here.

Officials said nurses will be available to field questions between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The average call back time during these hours will be about 20 minutes.

They will be able to answer questions about safety protocols and procedures from school administrators and respond to questions and concerns from parents.

However, health officials clarified the new resource is not for specific questions about a child’s health or a case of COVID-19. Parents with questions about their child’s health should contact their pediatric health care provider.