The New York City contact location team will be tested over the winter amid a new rise in Covid-19 cases that is expected to continue during the holiday season.
While the introduction of Covid-19 vaccines has given New Yorkers hope that the worst part of the pandemic will end in 2021, the city has yet to navigate a difficult winter. The seven-day average of new and likely cases of Covid-19 in New York City has exceeded 3,000 for most of December, compared to nearly 250 new cases daily in early September.
Ted Long, executive director of the city’s Covid-19 Test and Trace Corps, said his team is ready for the moment. The body has added 1,000 members since the summer and now has a total of 4,000 members.
“We have staff and are prepared to handle all cases during the augmentation,” Dr. Long said.
Contact tracking remains one of the most important tools for public health officials to curb the spread of Covid-19. The city’s contact locator team contacts people who have tested positive for Covid-19 and other people who may have been exposed to notify them that they should self-ventilate to prevent illness. They also offer to help people access medical care and offer to accommodate people for free in a hotel if they cannot isolate themselves at home.
A New York City testing and monitoring body worker handed out masks and information at the Staten Island ferry terminal last month.
Photo:
brendan mcdermid / Reuters
The city’s contact location program started strong, but has improved. During the first few weeks of the program in June, only half of the people the contact tracers reached completed the admissions process, which involves answering a series of questions, according to the Test and Trace team. Now three out of four people are completing the intake.
According to the Test and Trace team, only 35% of the people who reached out to the contact tracers gave the names and information of the people they may have exposed during the first two weeks of the program in June. Now, 64% of people who complete the admissions process share contact information and about 18% say they had no contacts to share because they haven’t had significant recent personal interactions, Dr. Long said.
Dr. Long said his team focused on hiring contact locators who lived in the neighborhoods most affected by the pandemic to build trust in those communities to get more people to cooperate with contact tracking. They are also deploying people to track face-to-face contacts when you can’t contact someone over the phone. And at the city’s testing facilities, there are contact tracers available to start the process if someone does a quick test and tests positive.
Robert Amler, dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practices at New York Medical College, said many of the results of the city’s testing and monitoring team are impressive. A response rate of 64% of people who make contacts is good and comparable to other not-so-severe outbreaks of other diseases, he said. The percentage of people who completed the intake (about 75% of the people who arrived) is “very, very good,” he said.
While New York City has reached people well, the work could be tougher in the coming weeks, said Amanda Castel, a professor in the epidemiology department at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. George Washington University.
“As we delve into the pandemic, I think what we’re seeing is that part of this coveted fatigue that we see in people’s behaviors is also seen in terms of reaching individuals and getting complete information about its potential. contacts and to get there as well, ”Dr. Castel said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York’s public schools will close starting Thursday and move to totally remote learning. The city reached the seven-day average positivity rate threshold of 3% Covid-19 to stop face-to-face instruction. (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 people reached by contact tracers refuse to provide the names and information of people who have potentially been exposed to Covid-19.
The steady increase in infection rates will also be a challenge, which will add to the workload of the city’s contact monitoring team. Jackie Bray, executive director of the New York Test and Trace Corps, said the program had staff over the summer to avoid having to hire and train for a second wave.
“They’ve been given months of work at work and they’re really prepared when we have a lot more cases and the systems we’re using are more stressed,” Ms. Bray.
Casey de Pont, 35, said she was recently contacted by the city’s contact location team after attending a Brooklyn backyard meeting where a person later tested positive for Covid-19. After his first phone call with the contact tracer, he later received a care package from the contact tracking program that included hand sanitizers and masks, as well as a Covid-19 test kit at home.
By the time she received the care pack, Mrs. de Pont had already tested negative in two Covid-19 tests and did not have to use the test at home. He planned to stay in case he needs a test in the future, he said.
Ms. de Pont said she was happy to cooperate with the contact tracers and believes it is important for the public to share contacts if they have been potentially exposed to Covid-19.
“I could understand how invasive it feels, but now we’re in extenuating circumstances,” Ms. de Pont said. “So there are some things that are awkward, you just have to do it.”
—Melanie Grayce West contributed to this article.
Write to Joseph De Avila to [email protected]
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