Contact tracing seen as critical
Medical staff have been logging information from patients about COVID-19
A group of Oakland County public health nurses have been working seven days a week to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and to prevent a resurgence in cases.
Since the county’s first COVID-19 case was confirmed on March 12, a total of 45 nurses and sanitarians have been dedicated full-time to conducting contact tracing, which involves calling COVID-19 positive residents and identifying their close contacts while logging information about their symptoms and health. The nurses also provide individuals with information about next steps they should take to monitor their health and prevent virus spread.
It’s one of the critical efforts underway across the state to help slow the spread of the coronavirus and to help determine a pace at which various sectors of the economy can reopen safely.
Oakland County Executive David Coulter said as the cases began to “explode” and become more widespread, it became more difficult and less feasible to reach all of the close contacts, especially if those infected individuals had significant public exposure. As of now, the nurses are
still maintaining daily direct contact with each infected resident, but may not be calling every close contact to discuss their potential symptoms.
“We continue to take contact tracing very seriously and it continues to be a priority for us,” he said. “At the very early stages of this pandemic, we had an incredibly robust operation where we were literally contacting everyone who had tested positive and all of their contacts...As the curve goes down and we get to more manageable numbers, additional contact tracing will be critical.”
Oakland County has more than 8,000 confirmed cases and 900 deaths, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. From March 7-14, 379 new cases were confirmed in the county.
Some of these nurses have performed contact tracing before, including during the state’s measles outbreak that lasted from March 2019 through June 2019. 40 of the 44 confirmed cases in Michigan occurred in Oakland County.
Coulter said the county is projecting that it could need up to 300 individuals to perform contact tracing in the months ahead, but doesn’t see a need to hire anymore tracers at this point.
“Internally, we are making plans for how we would recruit those folks,” he said. “Obviously, these can’t be volunteers off the street. They need to have a medical background.”
The State of Michigan has contracted with Rock Connections, LLC., and Deloitte to support the state’s COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, both of which were approved through a State Emergency Operations Center review process.
More than 3,500 volunteers have been trained to perform contact tracing and will be making calls seven days a week for the next six to 12 months.
At the federal level, the U.S. House of Representatives are planning to vote on the HEROES Act on Friday, the second major COVID-19 funding package. Included in that bill is $75 billion to support COVID-19 testing, contract tracing, isolation measures and other activities that help to monitor and slow the spread of COVID-19.
On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Andy Levin (Bloomfield Township) and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) introduced the Coronavirus Containment Corps Act, which would require the CDC to develop a national contact tracing strategy and program. Both are calling for the legislation to be included in the federal government’s next COVID-19 response funding package.
The bill would provide $10 billion to states and tribal governments to hire more than 100,000 contact tracers and $500 million for workforce development agencies to help hire new contact tracers, with an emphasis on those currently out of work as a result of the pandemic.