Response to COVID-19 variant
Shelby County plans to use aggressive contact tracing to reduce the spread of the new mutation.
Shelby County plans to aggressively contact-trace anyone that it finds carrying the new mutation of the novel coronavirus to keep it from being the dominant strain in Shelby County.
Shelby County Health Director Alisa Haushalter said Tuesday that the county is readying its contact-tracing operation to contact-trace and focus on people who test positive for the B117 variant, a new mutation first discovered in the United Kingdom, that is significantly more transmissible than versions commonly found in the U.S.
“We have to get notice that the first potential variant strain... is identified,” Haushalter said. “Our laboratories are taking the lead on that ... The critical thing will be the immediate detection.”
She said once local labs know that the variant is present, the health department will be notified by a phone call, not the usual electronic notification. The department would begin tracing and potentially testing anyone that the first index case came in contact with. Then, the health department would alert the public of that first case.
The strain has been discovered in Chattanooga. Infectious disease experts locally have said that the public should assume it is present in the population.
Dr. Manoj Jain, a key member of the Memphis and Shelby County joint COVID-19 task-force, said local labs are already preparing to test, at random, for the new strain, using machines to sequence the virus’ genetic material.
“That would have a lot of benefit in reducing further spread,” Jain said. “That’s going to be critically important — to be able to respond in a very aggressive manner ... in the local area, because we do not want community transmission of the strain. As much as we can delay [that community transmission], the greater benefit, we will have by having reduced cases and reduced hospitalizations, reduced deaths, and reduced rapid spread.”
Jain said the new strain could elevate the region’s transmission number — how many people are infected, on average, by each new case — to 1.5, which is a rate that shows near-exponential growth. That would be a 50% increase in transmission from Shelby County’s transmission number of between 1 and 1.1.