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California’s aggressive approach to contact tracing is coming up short.
"High levels of transmission have made sort of traditional contact tracing impractical and difficult to do," admitted Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.
Contact tracers are tasked with responding to new positive cases, creating a list of all the people who have come into contact with someone who is sick and notifying them so they can be quarantined and tested. But with the amount of new cases increasing every day, the state’s contact tracers have been overwhelmed.
Tracing efforts are now becoming more targeted.
"Not just trying to contact trace every single case, when that’s not realistic given the number of cases we have today," Ghaly said.
The state is concentrating instead on outbreaks in schools, factories and other workplaces where the virus could spread quickly.
Adding to the issue is bureaucratic backlog, most of the state’s 3,600 contact tracers have yet to be on-boarded by individual counties.
"We’re working patiently with the counties, trying to increase their ability to accept the new contact tracing staff from the state," said Dr. Ghaly.
But this is an area where residents can shoulder some of the burden, he says. COVID-positive patients can help to slow the spread by reaching out to any friends, family members and associates that they may have exposed and encourage them to get tested.