Washington Expands Contact Tracing Program

WASHINGTON — The Washington State Department of Health says it is rapidly expanding the state's contact tracing program to track the spread of the coronavirus and place potentially infected residents in quarantine before they can infect others.

As of Wednesday, the DOH says 2,122 personnel have been trained to perform contact tracing in Washington. Of those, 723 are National Guard members, 769 are with the Department of Licensing and 630 are local or state public health professionals.

The state says that as the program grows, they hope to be able to contact infected patients within 24 hours of receiving a positive test, and all the patient's close contacts within 48 hours of that test result.

The personnel represent a more than 50 percent growth in the contact tracing program since it was first announced last Tuesday, and the state says thousands more people have volunteered to be trained over the coming months.

“I’m grateful to the agencies who answered the call to contribute to this important work,” Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement Wednesday. “We are all in this together, and the support from the National Guard and the Department of Licensing affirms that. Rapid work to track and prevent the spread of disease is an important piece of our ability to safely emerge from this pandemic.”

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Contact tracing works by having trained personnel interview patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Contact tracing agents then warn anyone that patient may have been in contact with that they have been exposed to the virus. Those people can then choose to go into quarantine, potentially cutting off the virus before it can be spread to anyone else.

The state stresses that public participation in the contact tracing program is voluntary, and that contact tracing interviews will be done over the phone. Contact tracing data is only accessible to public health professionals and is not shared. Additionally, when tracers interview potentially exposed contacts, those contacts will not be told who it was that exposed them to the virus, in the interest of privacy.

When contact tracing was first announced, customers were required to sign logbooks at every business they visited, giving them their time of arrival, name, and a phone number or email where they can be reached. After pushback from critics, customers now only have to sign those logbooks if they choose to. However, businesses are still required to keep the logs for 30 days, after which point they must be destroyed.

When a patient is interviewed by a contact tracing agent, the state says the interviews will be kept as brief as possible. Interviewers only ask the person for their date of birth, address, race or ethnicity, and who they have been in close contact with for more than 10 minutes while they were infectious. More information about the interview process can be found on the Department of Health's website here.

Government leaders say they are aware of privacy concerns, which is why the program has been made voluntary, but they are asking everyone who wants to, to participate in the program because a vast contact tracing network will help keep everyone safe.

“Case investigations and contact tracing are key pieces of the effort to keep Washington residents safe,” said Secretary of Health John Wiesman. “Both have been critical tools to suppress the virus in other parts of the world.”

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Inslee Walks Back Mandatory Contact Tracing Logs For Customers