The New York contact detection team will be put to the test during the winter amid a new surge in Covid-19 cases that is expected to continue through the holiday season.
While the launch of Covid-19 vaccines gave New Yorkers hope that the worst part of the pandemic will be in 2021, the city still has to move through a difficult winter. New York City’s seven-day average of new and likely Covid-19 cases exceeded most of December 3,000, compared to about 250 new cases daily in early September.
Ted Long, executive director of the City of Covid-19 Test and Trace Corps, said his team has been preparing for this moment. The corps has added 1,000 members since the summer and now has a total of 4,000 staff members.
“We are manned and ready to handle all cases through the boom,” said Dr. Long said.
Contact detection remains one of the most important tools for public health officials to limit the spread of Covid-19. The city’s contact detectives contact people who have tested positive for Covid-19 and others who have been exposed to inform them that they need to take self-quarantine to prevent others from getting sick. They also offer to help people access medical care and to set people up for free in a hotel if they cannot isolate themselves at home.
A worker from New York City’s Test and Trace Corps handed out masks and information at the Ferry Terminal in Staten Island last month.
Photo:
brendan mcdermid / Reuters
The city’s contact tracking program has started, but it has improved. During the first few weeks of the program in June, only half of the people who reached out to contacts completed the intake, which according to the testing and detection team involved answering a series of questions. Now three out of four people are taking the intake.
Only 35% of the people reached by contact detectives, according to the test and detection team, gave the names and information of people they revealed during the first two weeks in June. Now 64% of the people who complete the intake share contact information and about 18% said they had no contacts to share because they have not had meaningful interactions recently, dr. Long said.
Dr. Long said his team focused on contact persons living in the neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic, creating trust in the communities to get more people to work together to track contact. They also put people in for personal detection when someone cannot be reached by telephone. And at test facilities run by the city, contact detectives are available to start the process if someone tests quickly and tests positive.
Robert Amler, dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practice at New York Medical College, said many of the results from the city’s testing and detection team are impressive. A response rate of 64% of the contacts is good and comparable to other not-so-serious outbreaks of other diseases, he said. The percentage of people who completed the intake – about 75% of the people reached – is ‘very, very good’, he said.
Although the city of New York has succeeded in reaching individuals, the work may become more difficult in the coming weeks, said Amanda Castel, a professor in the epidemiology department at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. said.
‘As we get further into the pandemic, I think that what we are seeing is that some of the Covid fatigue that we are seeing in people’s behavior, we are also seeing in terms of reaching individuals and getting really complete information about their potential. to get. contacts and to reach those contacts as well, ”said dr. Castel said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said public schools in New York will close from Thursday and switch to full distance education. The city reached the 3% Covid-19 seven-day average positivity rate threshold to stop personal tuition. (Originally published on November 18.) Photo: Wang Ying / Xinhua / Zuma Press
Other parts of the tri-state region are already struggling with this aspect. In New Jersey, nearly 80% of the people reached by contact detectives refuse to give the names and information of people who may have been exposed to Covid-19.
The steady increase in infection rates will also be a challenge, which will increase the workload for the city’s contact detection team. Jackie Bray, deputy executive director of New York City’s Test and Trace Corps, said the program was manned during the summer to prevent him from having to hire and train during a second boom.
“They’ve got months of work to do, and they’re really ready when we have a lot more business, and the systems we use are more stressful,” she said. Bray said.
Casey de Pont, 35, said she was recently contacted by the city’s contact detection team after attending a meeting in the Brooklyn Garden where one person later tested positive for Covid-19. After her first call with the contact tracker, she later received a care package from the contact tracing program that included hand sanitizer and masks, as well as a home Covid-19 test kit.
By the time she received the care package, Ms. De Pont has already tested negative in two Covid-19 tests and she does not have to use the home test. She plans to hold it in case she needs a test in the future, she said.
Mrs. De Pont said she would like to work with the contact detectives and feels it is important for the public to share contacts if they may have been exposed to Covid-19.
“I could understand how it feels penetrating, but we are currently in mitigating circumstances,” she said. Pont said. “There are some things that are uncomfortable, you just have to do it.”
—Melanie Grayce West contributed to this article.
Write to Joseph De Avila by [email protected]
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