CDC team providing additional support for COVID investigations
EL CENTRO — As Imperial County nears the last metric that would allow it seek a variance to move into Advanced Stage 2 of reopening, the Public Health Department it is getting some significant assistance.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has deployed a team to Imperial County to provide support for contact tracing; binational case investigations; hospital infection prevention and control; and reporting, data management and planning.
The CDC team consists of five staff members, including epidemiologists and others.
Some of the team members arrived as early as Monday, while others arrived Friday and will remain in the Valley until July 6.
According to Fernanda Lynch, spokeswoman for the Imperial County Department of Public Health, the CDC team is in the Valley to provide support for binational case investigations and outbreaks as needed.
“Our Department welcomes the additional support from the CDC,” added Epidemiology Manager Paula Kriner. “This is an unprecedented time for our community and having the assistance from our federal partners allows us to continue serving our community with the highest level of professionalism that they deserve as we respond to the pandemic.”
Lynch said the CDC team will allow public health staff to focus on case investigations, obtaining information for isolation orders and generating contacts for follow-up.
The Public Health Department is participating in the California Department of Public Health’s new program for case investigation and contact tracing called CalCONNECT.
In addition to more than 12 local case investigators who have been trained, the state is in the process of assigning and training a total of 10 bilingual case investigators and 10 bilingual contact tracers to investigate cases, identify contacts to those cases, and follow up with the contacts.
Imperial County remains in Stage 2 of
Lower Risk under the Roadmap to Recovery mandated by guidelines established in the California Resilience Roadmap by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
However, since Monday the county’s positive case rate for a seven-day period has dropped from 23 percent to 11 percent.
The state will only approve a variance when the percentage of positive cases drops to below 8 percent in a seven-day time frame.
Lynch, in an email in response to a question, said once all the metrics are met County Health Officer Steve Munday will complete and submit the variance attestation report as required by the state.
In addition to the attestation form, counties are required to submit a letter of support from the Imperial County Board of Supervisors, a letter of support from local hospitals and a county plan for moving through Stage 2.