Virus contact tracing team slashed
Anne Arundel County task force drops from 90 to 55 as school nurses return to work
Anne Arundel County’s contact tracing task force has shrunk from 90 to 55 as school nurses return towork, reducing how many cases per day the staff can track as the county sets a threshold of five cases per 100,000 to reopen schools.
The county is now tracking daily coronavirus cases per 100,000 people to measure the spread of COVID-19 in the community. There were 12.5 cases per 100,000 people on Wednesday. Officials target five cases per100,000 people— about 30 new cases a day— to reopen schools and other higher-risk locations and activities. As they push for these metrics, the number of contact tracers following the virus has reduced.
Five cases per 100,000 people is the highest number of new cases per day that the health department can realistically contact trace with their current number of contact tracers, said Krystle Coldiron, health department director of assessment and planning.
“Going over the five cases per 100,000 per day threshold will put us at risk of missing cases leading to out of control community spread and could cause the need to implement closures and other containment measures,” Coldiron said in a statement.
The health department quickly deployed an armada of contact tracers when the pandemic peaked this spring by assigning school nurses to call the new positive cases and monitor their close contacts. Since school nurses have returned to work and infections have fluctuated over the past six months, the department’s team has shrunk to 55 contact tracers who identify viruspositive people and advise them on how to isolate while their household members quarantine.
Younger people with higher levels of activity who become infected with the virus are more likely to have multiple contacts, as many as 10 or 20 contacts per case. Those contacts are monitored for emerging symptoms with frequent phone calls from the health department.
The county hired around 120 people and shuffled county employees into new roles this July to prepare for school nurses returning to work and keep up with COVID-19 cases this fall. Those employees trace contacts, issue COVID-19 tests and staff the department’s phone line. The health department adjusts its staff levels across these roles frequently.
Health department officials did not return further requests for comment on the reduced contact tracing numbers.
Anne Arundel County is currently averaging 54 daily coronavirus cases confirmed with a test, adding another 96 new infections and another death Wednesday that pushes the county further away from
its goal of five cases per 100,000.
The newly reported cases bring total infections to 9,398 since the first case was confirmed in March. At least 230 people have died, and an additional 11 people are believed to have died of the virus but were never tested.
The rolling seven-day positivity rate is now3.84%, down from4.1% on Tuesday.
TheMaryland Department ofHealth has confirmed 643newcases of the virus across the state and six new deaths Wednesday, bringing the seven-day rolling positivity rate to 3.44%, down slightly from Tuesday. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Maryland has had 117,888 positive cases of the virus, and at least 3,712 deaths. The state has nowprocessed 2,272,265 tests.
At least 347 people are currently hospitalized with the virus acrossMaryland, the agency reports, a decrease of 24 people since Tuesday.
There are currently 30 people hospitalized for COVID-19 at Anne Arundel Medical Center or Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie. The rate of hospitalized patients had hovered at around 30 patients after a slight increase to about 50 patients in mid-July, a significant drop after an initial surge in April when172 peoplewere hospitalized.
In the past fourweeks, Black residents in Anne Arundel made up 47% of people who died from the virus despite making up 17% of the population. Black residents represent
25% of new cases over the past four weeks. White residents account for 53% of deaths and 47% of new cases over the past four weeks and makeup 67% of the population.
Hispanic residents make up 10% of all of the county’s new cases and but only 8% of the population.
No Hispanic residents have died from COVID-19 in the past fourweeks.
Younger residents primarily drive new cases. People ages 20 to 29 make up 24% of new coronavirus cases over the past four weeks. More than half of all new cases are residents ages 10 to 40.
Contact tracing is finding most cases linked to peopleworking outside the home, spending time indoors shopping or participating in family gatherings.
ZIP
Here is an alphabetical breakdownof the number of cases in each ZIP code in Anne Arundel County as of Wednesday. State numbers are in parentheses.
ZIP codes that overlap more than one county are in italics. The state numbers also account for cases at congregate living facilities in those ZIP codes, which the county numbers do not include.
The county has said that they remove cases from this data as they determine they are from congregate housing, such as nursing homes or retirement communities, which may also account for discrepancies.
■ Annapolis (21401): 740 (836)
■ Annapolis (21403): 822 (884)
■ Annapolis (21405): 10 (18)
■ Annapolis (21409): 203 (242)
■ Annapolis Junction (20701): 1(N/A)
■ Arnold (21012): 200 (296)
■ Brooklyn (21225): 195 (692)
■ BWI Airport (21240): 0 (N/A)
■ Churchton (20733): 22 (26)
■ Crofton (21114): 214 (314)
■ Crownsville (21032): 83 (125)
■ Curtis Bay (21226): 31 (89)
■ Davidsonville (21035): 52 (63)
■ Deale (20751): 24 (23)
■ Dunkirk (20754): 9 (70)
■ Edgewater (21037): 247 (338)
■ Fort Meade (20755): (52)Friendship (20758): 3 (N/A)Galesville (20765): 3 (N/A) ■ Gambrills (21054): 114 (186)
■ Gibson Island (21056): 3 (N/A)
■ Glen Burnie (21060): 524 (640)
■ Glen Burnie (21061): 931 (1038)
■ Hanover (21076): 292 (379)
■ Harmans (21077): 6 (N/A)
■ Harwood (20776): 28(29)
■ Jessup (20794): 33 (694)
■ Laurel (20724): 465 (495)
■ LinthicumHeights (21090): 108 (148)
■ Lothian (20711): 134 (147)
■ Millersville (21108): 194 (216)
■ Naval Academy (21402): (14)
■ North Beach (20714): 2 (38)
■ Odenton (21113): 407 (457)
■ Owings (20736): 0 (74)
■ Pasadena (21122): 683 (748)
■ Riva (21140): 19 (25)
■ Severn (21144): 498 (539)
■ Severna Park (21146): 263 (340)
■ Shady Side (20764): 33 (36)
■ Tracys Landing (20779): 10 (10)
■ West River (20778): 23 (23)