Officials: Partygoers uncooperative with tracers

Virus cases linked to sports and graduation outings in Montco

NORRISTOWN » A Montgomery County youth sports league coach who had COVID-19 attended a Fourth of July party, potentially putting others at risk for the virus.

A graduation party in the county was attended by more than 100 people, many of whom didn’t practice social distancing or wear masks, and several positive cases of the virus were identified as potentially being linked to the gathering.

Those are just two recent incidents that members of a contact tracing team shared with county officials “because of their very, very deep concern for the lack of cooperation from some individuals in our community with the contact tracing process itself, and then with the isolation and quarantine orders they are being given,” county Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh revealed during a news briefing this week.

“These are really serious problems. Non-cooperation with contact tracers can result in outbreaks that are substantial and can infect many, many, many people in our community,” said Arkoosh, who as a physician has been at the forefront of the county’s efforts to combat COVID-19

and provide citizens with the latest information regarding the outbreak.

Contact tracing programs are a major component of Gov. Tom Wolf’s program for reopening counties and their economies across the state. Contact tracing involves identifying those with whom an infected person has been in close contact so they can self-quarantine to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The coach, whose identity was not revealed by county officials, performed duties during the infectious period. Officials did not publicly identify the youth sports league.

“This individual acknowledged that they did not always maintain social distance and did not always wear a mask,” said Arkoosh, who characterized the coach’s interaction with contact tracers as “partial cooperation.” “Because of that, working with the president of the league, the Office of Public Health recommended that 12 players and all three coaches be quarantined for a 14-day period.”

Arkoosh said through contact tracing with the coach, health officials learned the coach had several household exposures, “which we always expect,” and that the coach attended a July 4th party, during the infectious period.

“However, they were unwilling to give us the names of the people that were also at that party,” Arkoosh said. “And so because of that, our contact tracing team was not able to notify these individuals that they had direct contact to somebody who was positive for COVID-19.

“However, as is often the case, the rumor mill started, and so our office started to get phone calls from people who had been at that party, saying that they had heard somebody there was positive. But because we weren’t given the direct information, our contact tracing team couldn’t confirm one way or another. We try to make this information as reliable as possible,” Arkoosh added. “So, that was deeply frustrating for everybody involved.”

The frustration was compounded, officials claimed, by the actions of some parents of the players.

“We also learned that there were parents, who even though their children should have been in quarantine, took their children to play in other sports leagues’ games,” Arkoosh revealed. “So, these are the types of activities, that when you see these big outbreaks in some of our other states, this is how this happens.

“You have somebody who is a positive individual, they go to a party, they don’t share with our team who was at that party, so we have no way to contact those people and tell them to quarantine. Or we have people that are just simply defying the orders to quarantine, even though they know with certainty that they were directly exposed to the coronavirus,” Arkoosh said.

The county Office of Public Health also learned about a large graduation party held in the county at the end of June.

“They had over 100 people in attendance. They were not practicing social distancing or masking. It was identified that some attendees were sharing drinks out of the same glass and sharing vape pens. Several positive cases have been identified as possibly being infected at this party,” said Arkoosh, a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine who also has a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“We believe that there are probably other cases from that party but they have not admitted to being at the party. We also believe that many people were potentially exposed at that party, but we have not been able to notify them because no one has been willing to share the names with us,” Arkoosh added.

“The cases that we know are positive have resulted in spread and exposure to groups that have included first responders, pool lifeguards and other groups that have regular contact with the public,” Arkoosh continued.

The two incidents, Arkoosh said, highlight the importance of adhering to virus mitigation measures and cooperating with contact tracers who are trying to stop the spread of the virus.

“We are all in this together. If you test positive, please cooperate with contact tracing. We do not reveal who the positive individual is but it is imperative that we find out anyone that you may have exposed, even accidentally, as best as you can remember, so that we can make sure that those individuals are warned and that they can take steps for themselves to protect their families and their co-workers and anyone else that they might come into contact with,” Arkoosh said.

Arkoosh reminded county residents that even though the county is under the least restrictive “green phase” of the governor’s reopening plan, “Green does not mean go back to what your life was like before the pandemic.”

“Green means carefully and cautiously moving forward to our new normal of living with this virus for the foreseeable future,” said Arkoosh, who was joined at the news briefing by fellow Commissioner Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr.

Emphasizing the importance of continuing to follow guidelines for social distancing and mask wearing, Arkoosh pointed out that a number of other states that reopened four to six weeks ago are experiencing surges in positive COVID-19 cases.

The goals, Arkoosh said, are to be able to open schools this fall and to keep businesses open.

“The last thing we want to do is be in a situation where we would have to ask those businesses to close again and the way that we are successful in doing this is to keep the amount of the virus circulating in our community as low as possible. This protects all of us as well as our hospitals and our first responders,” Arkoosh said.

“The decisions that people are making today will manifest fully four to six weeks from now. That’s how long it takes for the disease to spread sufficiently to really impact a large number of people. And that would be right when our schools are trying to open back up for our kids to go back,” Arkoosh added.