SLO County tripling its contact tracing staff to slow the spread of COVID-19
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The San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department is expanding its contact tracing staff to 24 people, roughly tripling its size, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Trained contact tracers are responsible for fully investigating all confirmed cases of coronavirus to learn how the virus is spreading.
The county’s workload is increasing as the number of local cases rise, with the current total at 473 countywide as of Wednesday, after a spike of about 100 new cases over the past week.
““We are working hard to manage the spread of COVID-19 in SLO County,” said Dr. Penny Borenstein, the county’s health officer, in a news release. “If you have been exposed, we will call you and ask you to self-quarantine at home based on when you were exposed. Help us slow transmission and answer the call to manage the spread.”
Contact tracing is a “time-tested public health practice in which trained investigators follow up on each case to identify those who may have been exposed to the disease,” the county said.
How the questioning works
Borenstein said at Wednesday’s news conference that the county will maintain health privacy and not reveal personal information about those contacted with questions about the spread of the disease.
Borenstein added that often contact tracers work off a form of listed questions, which is designed to generate the necessary information to best track exposures.
They ask how the patients are doing, issue isolation orders, and help connect them with care and services, if needed.
“The number of contacts per case — the people who may have been exposed to the virus by one person who is sick — have also increased as the community reopens,” the county said in its news release.
Those at high risk receive daily follow-up calls.
“Throughout the process, all personal information, including names, is strictly protected,” the news release said.
Since the pandemic began, the County Public Health Department has traced 100 percent of the confirmed cases in SLO County, officials stated.
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