Health & Fitness
SC Co. Struggles Recruiting COVID-19 Trackers: Report
Santa Clara County aims to have 1,000 contact tracers. So far it has just 50, The San Jose Mercury News reports.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — Santa Clara County is lagging behind in its efforts to recruit volunteer contact tracers it will need to safely move towards normalcy amid the coronavirus crisis, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
The county has so far hired just 50 contact tracers, far short of the stated goal of 700 it hoped to have by now, the report said. The county aims to eventually have a COVID-19 tracking workforce of 1,000.
County CEO Jeff Smith acknowledged the recruiting process has been challenging, the report said.
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“It’s turned out to be a lot harder than I expected, because the cities were really unable to identify a large group, and we’ve been calling and communicating with our employees and haven’t received a lot of ‘yes’ answers,” Smith told the Mercury News.
“I’m still pretty confident we’ll get there, but it wasn’t as fast as I expected.”
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At its current staffing level the county’s health department can assign just 2.6 tracers per 100,000 residents. Gov. Gavin Newsom has set the requirement for reopening to 15 tracers per 100,000 residents.
Some have declined the position because they falsely believe that it would require them to expose themselves to COVID-19, the report said.
The county has attempted to address this misconception and is trying to recruit current staffers, the report said, noting that it may consider paid contract tracing positions.
Contact tracers are needed to locate those who have been in contact with infected persons and encourage them to self-quarantine, which along with getting sickened persons to stay home or get medical care are among the crucial elements needed to contain the outbreak, UCSF epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford told the Mercury.
“Contact tracing is important because as soon as we get away from the shelter-in-place, it becomes a first line of defense — or really a second line of defense — against coronavirus transmission,” Rutherford said.
“It’s a more surgical approach than shelter-in-place.”
Read more in The San Jose Mercury News
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