Stanislaus County is expanding the team assigned to contain coronavirus. Will it help?
Stanislaus County is building a cadre of health workers for more effective contact tracing as county and state residents are released from coronavirus stay-home orders.
County supervisors unanimously approved a staffing request Tuesday to add 14 positions to a 35-member contact tracing team that was thrown together in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
As residents return to work in the coming weeks, stores start serving customers and campuses reopen, health experts predict an increase in COVID-19 respiratory illness.
Contact investigators play a crucial role in containing contagious disease outbreaks by finding infected individuals soon after positive tests are reported to public health officials. The county learns about positive tests from health care providers or a state database.
The contact investigators ask a person infected with coronavirus to disclose close contacts with people within two days of the symptoms. They quarantine people who have been exposed, and the team offers assistance with getting groceries or medicine to people isolated at home.
Stanislaus County’s team has responded to an average of 10 positive tests per day. A larger team with about 50 members could be expected to handle 30 positive tests daily, said Mary Ann Lilly, director of the county Health Services Agency.
Most of the current team is made up of people borrowed from other offices in the Health Services Agency and other county departments such as probation and the library. A year ago, the county agency had 14 employees assigned to contact investigations.
The county will hire a senior medical investigator at a salary ranging from $61,000 to $74,000 a year. Other additions to the team will include five medical investigators, four public health nurses, an epidemiologist, a community health worker and two staff services analysts.
The Health Services Agency staffing plan also includes part-time positions for extra help, as the tracing is done seven days a week. Supervisors only approved the full-time positions Tuesday, with salaries and benefits estimated to cost $1.9 million annually.
The county’s contact tracing unit will stay busy until a coronavirus vaccine or effective treatments are developed in the next 18 months. By that time, some members will return to their normal jobs.
Newsom plan to reopen relies on better tracing
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan for lifting stay-home orders calls for a robust contact tracing system in California, combined with wider testing, which would aim to keep COVID-19 under control and prevent a surge of hospital patients as the state reopens.
According to experts, an effective tracing program keeps an infected person from spreading the disease to friends or co-workers and stops exponential growth of contagious illness.
County health services tries to begin the tracing process within 24 hours of a positive test.
Supervisor Terry Withrow asked at Tuesday’s meeting if the Health Services Agency can quickly hire people for the harder-to-fill positions. Staff said there was already some interest expressed in the open positions.
Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, county health officer, said respiratory viruses tend to decline in the summer months. But she expects some residents will still contract the disease from June to August and it will come back strong in the fall.
“I don’t expect it to go away,” Vaishampayan said. “We are too susceptible as a population. There is just too much virus around.”
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 9:50 AM.
