Several Central Florida health departments are looking to hire more contact tracers as COVID-19 cases climb and parents decide if their children will return to the classroom.
But a question remains on some leaders’ minds: How will counties handle all the cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says to consider several factors such as how many people a positive person might come into contact with, and how many contact tracers would be necessary.
The CDC then came up with this for guidance: A county with nine cases per 100,000 people daily would need 33 contact tracers. A county with 136 cases per 100,000 people daily would need as many as 3,700 tracers.
The number needed grew exponentially because “tracing is calling, hoping the person answers the phone, hoping the person wants to talk to you, and then going through about 30-40 minutes of questioning, and then you have to call every single … contact that person had,” Orange County health officer Dr. Raul Pino said. “So it multiplies.”
Here’s a breakdown of how many people are on hand to track COVID-19 by county.
- Orange: 78
- Seminole: 27
- Volusia: 25
- Brevard: 20
- Marion: 13
- Lake: 12
- Sumter: 10
Based on the CDC’s low estimate, each department should have more than 33 contact tracers because over the last seven days, each county had an average of more than nine cases per 100,000 people daily.
Earlier this week, Orange, Volusia, Brevard, Marion, Lake and Sumter said they were currently in the process of hiring more staff. Seminole County said it analyzes the county’s needs daily and would reassess should the need arise for additional staff.
On Wednesday, Seminole said it is hiring additional staff for its epidemiology investigations and contact tracing.
The Volusia County Health Department has 25 epidemiologists and contact tracers to investigate how the virus is spreading throughout the community.
Volusia County health officials told the school board last week that it will be recruiting 45 additional staffers, about half of them being epidemiologists and the other half being contact tracers.
Pino said his department will hopefully begin texting possible close contacts instead of just calling them. The goal is to more quickly and effectively reach people so they might get tested and quarantine as soon as possible.
If contact tracers end up calling you, there is a lot do to help, according to the CDC, including keeping a list of close contacts and being mindful of where you’ve been.
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