Stanislaus County coronavirus investigators need state help, health officer says
The Stanislaus County Health Agency is still reporting backlogs of coronavirus data as investigators struggle to call all the people who test positive.
Even with about 20 state contact tracers helping the county, Public Health Officer Dr. Julie Vaishampayan on Wednesday said investigators need more help in determining where people with COVID-19 have been and whom they have seen.
The agency also fell behind in updating recovery statistics, Vaishampayan said during a community briefing, causing the county to report 2,533 recoveries Wednesday. Several residents shared their caseload concerns with county emergency services, prompting briefing moderators to ask what resources counties — and specifically Stanislaus — need to stay on top of contact tracing.
“When you’re getting a lot of cases in, it’s almost impossible to keep up,” Vaishampayan said in response.
First investigators must call those who test positive for COVID-19 and find out where they possibly exposed people to the infectious disease, Vaishampayan said. She described the next part, notifying close contacts and instructing them to quarantine, as relatively easier.
On Thursday morning, the state reported that Stanislaus County had 417 new cases, a single-day high for the county. It moved the number of positive cases past 7,000 to 7,401. On Wednesday, four more deaths were reported, bringing the county’s total to 77.
Surge in California straining system
The surge of cases has strained investigators across California, prompting the state health secretary to say there are too many COVID-19 cases to realistically trace every new infection.
“At the level of transmission we’re seeing across the state, even a very, very robust contact tracing team in every single county will have a hard time reaching out to every case,” Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday.
Despite the challenges, Vaishampayan emphasized the importance of contact tracing, saying the process stops the spread of the coronavirus on an individual level. Contact tracers leave a message if people do not answer, she said, and their calls may appear on phones as CA COVID Team, a 916 number or a number beginning in 209-588.
The Health Services Agency is still hiring medical investigators, according to the county job portal, but the county did not respond to inquiries about whether the agency is hiring more contact tracers specifically. The county said it had 50 plus contact tracers two weeks ago, which is about 33 below the state recommendation of at least 15 contact tracers for every 100,000 people.
Kristin Olsen, chairwoman of the county Board of Supervisors, identified “robust” contact tracing and trying to expedite test result turnaround times as county efforts to get off the state watch list. Otherwise, Olsen said there isn’t much more the county can do to lower the rate of spread and active cases.
“At the end of the day it’s up to each person individually to change their behavior if we’re going to be successful in slowing spread, reducing our hospital numbers and being able to open things back up,” Olsen said. “The best thing that the county can be doing is reminding people to wear your face coverings, practice social distancing, limit the amount of times you’re out in public.”
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 1:01 PM.
