State signs $295 million tracing contract
Texas health officials have awarded up to $295 million to a private technology company to quickly grow and manage a large fleet of contact tracers as the state braces for up to two years without a coronavirus vaccine. The 27-month contract, signed late this week with MTX Group, comes as more businesses begin to open and the number of new daily COVID-19 cases in much of Texas continues to grow. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has said new outbreaks may be inevitable as restrictions loosen, and has vowed to bring on at least 4,000 tracers by the end of this month to help contain them.
There were about 2,000 tracers active across the state this week. Tracers track down close contacts of those infected, monitor them for symptoms and provide them with instructions on testing and quarantine or isolation.
Texas is now one of more than a dozen states to rely on contact tracing technology from MTX, an Albany-based firm that recently set up a second headquarters in Frisco. But it will be among the first — if not the first — states for whom the company will also hire, train and manage thousands of tracers, according
to Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Department of State Health Services.
Van Deusen said the agency plans for MTX to hire up to 1,000 tracers, in addition to the 2,000 state and local tracers already operating. Several hundred state health employees have volunteered to do tracing in lieu of their regular jobs. Cities and counties are also in the process of hiring hundreds of tracers.
MTX's primary role will be building and overseeing a virtual call center.
"The overall strength of their bid and their experience with call tracing in various states are what led us to choose them," Van Deusen said in an email.
Bidding documents obtained by Hearst Newspapers say the contractor would oversee and provide support for “a corps of epidemiologists, case investigators, and contact tracers.”
The deal appears to have been put together within just a few days. On Wednesday, MTX hired Austin-based lobbyists Andrea and Dean McWilliams for up to $50,000 each, according to public disclosure documents. Others who submitted bids include contracting giants Accenture and Maximus, representatives of the companies said.
This appears to be MTX's first contract with the state.
The company declined to comment on the deal. CEO Das Nobel has said it specializes in messaging applications and artificial intelligence to help government and agencies respond to emergencies.
Vanguard Law Magazine called MTX Group “a $10 million company — that has been self-funded to this point” in a story published last September. The firm grew from three employees in 2015 to 200. Vanguard also reported the company was “poised to go after a billion dollars in revenue by 2025.”
The company reportedly first rolled out a disease monitoring and control application in early March in New York. Van Deusen said it is also managing contact tracers there, and that MTX’s experience was a major draw for Texas.
Van Deusen said MTX also has expertise in Salesforce, the cloud-based software that powers the state’s online tracing application called Texas Healthy Trace.
The state also set up a call center late last month, but was using the community health hotline 211, which quickly became inundated. MTX will be in charge of building a more longterm solution.
The agency aims to have the new call center up by next week. It will be staffed 12 hours per day, seven days per week, according to a copy of the bid that was obtained by Hearst Newspapers.
The contract is being paid for with federal emergency relief dollars.