NY Coronavirus: Army Of Tracers Needed

An unprecedented contact tracing program to control the new coronavirus infection rate and hasten the safe reopening of the economy will launch immediately in coordination with the downstate region as well as New Jersey and Connecticut. The project is a joint effort of New York State and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

There has never been a contact tracing program implemented at this scale either in New York or anywhere in the United States, Cuomo said in the announcement.

"While we start our work to re-open our economy we must ensure we are doing it in a way that does no harm and does not undo all of the work and sacrifice it has taken to get here," he said. "One of the most critical pieces of getting to a new normal is to ramp up testing, but states have a second big task - to put together an army of people to trace each person who tested positive, find out who they contacted and then isolate those people."

A main issue continues to be testing. Manufacturers of tests say problems with the international supply chain make it difficult to increase production. The state can now test 20,000 people a day, and set as a goal getting up to 40,000 a day, Cuomo said at his Wednesday briefing.

As of midnight Tuesday, New York has tested 669,982 people for new coronavirus since the beginning of March, and 257,216 tested positive.

Contact tracing helps prevent the spread of the virus by using testing to confirm if someone has COVID-19, the disease it causes, then interviewing that person to identify people they may have been in contact with during their illness and during the few days before symptoms began, reaching out to their contacts to alert them to their risk of infection and then referring contacts to medical providers and asking non-ill people to stay home for 14 days to be sure they don't spread COVID-19 to others.

Right now, there are 715 contact tracers working in New York, including in Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester counties. The new program will require hundreds more.

The New York State Department of Health will work with Bloomberg Philanthropies to help identify and recruit contact tracer candidates for the training program, including staff from the State Department of Health, investigators from various state agencies, hundreds of tracers from downstate counties and SUNY and CUNY students in medical fields.

Contact tracing is a proven public health tool which can profoundly help "box in" the virus. Large-scale contact tracing is critical to safely and responsibly reopening communities while preserving the public health, state officials said.

Several countries, such as Germany, Singapore and South Korea, have used contact tracing effectively amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. As a result, those countries have been able to re-open for business quickly and have experienced fewer deaths and lower rates of infection.

Bloomberg Philanthropies will help build and execute the program, contributing organizational support and technical assistance. The Bloomberg School of Public Health at The Johns Hopkins University will build an online curriculum and training program for contact tracers.

State officials and Bloomberg Philanthropies will also establish an expert panel to review the work of the program, and create a best in class model that other states can use for contact tracing.

"We're all eager to begin loosening restrictions on our daily lives and our economy. But in order to do that as safely as possible, we first have to put in place systems to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus and support them as they isolate," said Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg LP, and three-term mayor of New York City.

The effort includes a partnership with Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, to provide operational and technical advising to New York State Health Department staff. They will assist in the development of call center protocols and digital solutions to rapidly catalyze progress and expedite workflow; and determine best ways to increase community engagement and understanding of the role of contact tracing as a public health tool.

Editor's Note: There are 715 contact tracers working in New York including 200 in New York City. The total was incorrect in the original version of this report. Patch regrets the error.

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