Our view: To battle COVID-19, recruit army of contact tracers
The craggy, whiskered face under an outlandish top hat glares directly at the viewer with a pointed index finger to emphasize the words “I want you.” The Uncle Sam recruitment poster employed during World War I and later World War II could — and perhaps should — be dusted off to motivate a new generation of volunteers for a new type of war.
The nation will need them for what President Donald Trump has labeled a battle against an invisible enemy, the coronavirus. As infections appear to be peaking in major metropolitan areas and states begin relaxing social dis- tancing, America might well require an army of what are called “contact tracers” to guard against a COVID-19 counterattack.
Contact tracers are a crucial part of a health response to any contagious disease. But they need not have medical training. They act more like investigators. With skills that can be easily taught, contact tracers interview the newly infected to learn who else that person might have been in contact with during the previous two weeks (the incubation period for COVID-19) and then reach out to that circle of people to alert them that they were exposed to coronavirus and urge that they isolate themselves for two weeks.
This low-tech process could be supplemented with cellphone apps being developed by Apple and Google.
Short of a vaccine or effective treatment, this “test, trace and isolate” process is how infection chains are broken and new coronavirus outbreaks tamped down.
Contact tracing is a time-honored health procedure. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attempted to use contact tracing in February, when only 14 cases of coronavirus had been identified. But because of a slow federal response and a lack of testing kits, the highly contagious disease rapidly spread beyond those containment efforts.
Testing has since ramped up, and with the nation’s success at social distancing, the numbers of infections appear to be ebbing. A new report released by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security estimates that, to prevent a resurgence, America would need at least 100,000 contact tracers spread out across the country in a mobilizing effort led by counties and states, with guidance and coordination from the CDC and funding from Congress.
The analysis argues that people hired as contact tracers could earn the average wage of a community health worker: $17 an hour, useful income at a time of high unemployment. Public health graduate students could be candidates. The cost nationwide would amount to about $3.6 billion, money Congress should allocate.
On Monday, bipartisan health leaders led by Andy Slavitt, former director of Medicare and Medicaid in the Obama administration, and Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner in the Trump administration, called on Congress to spend $12 billion to help expand the contact tracing workforce by 180,000 people until a vaccine becomes available.
Massachusetts, Mississippi, Utah and Washington are among the states gearing up contact tracing teams. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week announced a coordinated effort by his state, New Jersey and Connecticut to create a “tracing army” led by former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is kicking in $10.5 million.
National leadership is needed to promote contact tracing and to coordinate a broad effort.
People who want to enlist should look to their local and state health agencies for where to sign up. And here’s an idea: a revised recruitment poster with an artist’s rendering of the nation’s most noted expert on the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, pointedly telling us “I want you” to serve as a contact tracer.