Imperial County increases efforts to trace infected people
IMPERIAL COUNTY, Calif. (KYMA, KECY), Imperial County has increased its efforts to trace people who may have been exposed to COVID-19.
Increased testing and tracing are part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s efforts to reopen California.
With an increased number of people moving around in public as businesses begin to reopen, Newsom said our capability to trace infected people also needs to increase.
The Imperial County Public Health Department is doing all they can to expand its efforts. Their epidemiology team of four has now increased to a team of 15.
“Obviously with what's going on four people can't possibly do this, and so we have trained and repurposed other people that work within our health department staff. We have really smart and highly trained nurses and staff. Since they aren't doing clinical work they are able to do other work,” said Dr. Stephen Munday, ICPHD health officer.
As the virus spreads from person to person, contact tracers help identify those that have been exposed to the virus.
“Have the conversation with them with regards to where they’ve been and whom they’ve been around, in the period of time before they got sick and what we normally do is try to go back two days before there symptom offset because that's when we believe that they start becoming contagious,” said Dr. Munday.
Munday says tracking people's steps is an extensive process.
“It’s really epidemiologist circles. You start with the people who had the closets contact in the period of time when the person was potentially infectious. You collect their information and look to see if anybody has become ill or needs to be quarantined. Then you keep going from there until you identify new cases,” said DR. Munday.
The state is expected to train 20,000 people to help with contact tracing efforts across the state. Munday says the Imperial County has been identified as one of the counties that will receive help to increase our tracing efforts.
According to the state health department California’s tracing program will be up and running by the end of this week.
