Cooperating with contact tracers is critical
In our new pandemic vocabulary, we have “contact tracing,” a means of tracking an infectious disease such as COVID-19 by building a map, so to speak, of people and places that were exposed to the virus by an infected individual.
The practice is not new to those who work with infectious diseases, but it is a new concept to the general public who may get calls from public health nurses to discuss people they’ve talked to and places they’ve been.
Contact tracing is a bootson-the-ground, person-driven approach to science. Amid all the technology, some of which is incorporated in this approach, the success or failure depends on people – on those interviewing COVID-19 positive individuals and on the cooperation both of the infected people and their contacts.
The process is being touted by both the state Department of Health and county health departments as a critical step in stopping a resurgence of the virus as Pennsylvania reopens businesses.
Contact tracing is how we “keep our entire community safe,” said Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh.
“A key element of living with the virus is contact tracing, which is currently underway in many parts of the county and will soon be conducted on every case,” Arkoosh said in a daily county update a week ago. “The goal is to quickly identify and isolate cases and contain the spread by quarantining each case’s close contacts. That is how we are going to keep the curve flat.”
The state Department of Health contact tracing plan will involve public health nurses, trained employees, and volunteers in the AmeriCorps program utilizing technology that alerts people if they are in the vicinity of a self-reported COVID-19 infection.
In Montgomery County, the county health department is partnering with four nonprofit organizations whose “tracers” will reach out to residents who test positive for COVID-19, determine their direct contacts and enter the information into an alert system that will allow officials to monitor the people who are positive and their contacts.
“Persons who test positive with the virus test will receive a call from our contact tracing team to offer guidance and to help persons recall who they had contact with during the time they were infectious,” Arkoosh explained. “Staff then will contact and warn those exposed individuals of their potential exposure as quickly and as sensitively as possible.”
The nonprofit collaborators include ACLAMO, Family Services of Montgomery County, Visiting Nurses Association Community Services, and Montgomery County OIC, all of whom have experience dealing with the county’s most vulnerable populations including families living in poverty, minorities and non-English speaking residents.
In addition to identifying the path of infection, staff from these four organizations will help guide treatment and testing for the populations that need help.
The state health department protocols used in counties such as Berks, which does not have its own health department, also provide for the communication of information and support to help vulnerable populations understand their risk and move through testing and treatment of the disease.
The state was awarded a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant for $18.7 million. A portion of these funds are earmarked by the federal government specifically for contact tracing.
Community health nurses in Berks, Lancaster and Schuylkill counties will be supplemented by volunteers recruited through organizations like PennServ/AmeriCorps and ServPA. The department will also seek partnerships with local health leaders and universities in the region.
As our counties move into the “Yellow Phase” of reopening, disease containment is critical to prevent a resurgence of cases. The focus on personby-person contact tracing is a large part of that effort.
Learning as we cope through this pandemic involves new tools and practices. We urge our readers to continue following distancing practices and care, and if contacted by a “tracer,” answer questions with honesty and openness. The system needs each person’s cooperation in order for it to work and to achieve the ultimate goal of living in a “post-pandemic” world.
That’s a new phrase, too, and we like the sound of it.