The Kansas Department of Health and Environment will halt contact tracing for COVID-19 next month, declaring efforts ‘unnecessary’ amid rising infection rates and declining patient participation. infected people.
The move, announced Tuesday, is part of an effort to move toward an endemic response to the coronavirus, though it comes at a time when more individuals are infected than at any time during the pandemic and hospitals are reporting to be pushed to the brink.
Contact tracing is associated with case investigation and both serve as essential actions in responding to an infectious disease outbreak. A worker determines who an infected person was, then alerts those people and advises them to be on the lookout for symptoms of COVID-19.
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KDHE Secretary Janet Stanek said the announcement took weeks as contact tracing has become “very difficult” in school settings and the general population, noting that “people are being diagnosed in the hundreds”. .
In recent days, the state has consistently reported more than 4,000 and even 5,000 cases of COVID-19 daily. On January 11, 5,485 cases were announced in Kansas, the highest number since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Schools will continue to conduct contact tracing where possible, but will have the option to discontinue the practice. The agency will reassess the move in 30 days.
But KDHE will halt its own contact tracing from February 1. For months, the agency has hired its own staff and stepped up its contact tracing and case investigations to help counties overwhelmed with cases.
Members of the public, however, have become increasingly reluctant to participate in the voluntary practice, Stanek said.
“We don’t see the public being as willing to share information,” Stanek said. “So the contact tracing efforts end up being a bit futile at this point.”
The agency’s current contact tracing staff will be converted to contact investigators, KDHE said, meaning they will work to notify those who have tested positive of their COVID-19 status.
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Members of the public, meanwhile, will be asked to notify their own close contacts if they are infected. If a person works in a congregate setting, such as a school, correctional facility, or long-term care facility, KDHE will notify the employer, who will be responsible for taking the matter from there.
The move comes as Kansas plans a pivot toward a more sustainable approach to what COVID-19 will look like, expecting the virus to become endemic or occur regularly in society.
Contact tracing and case investigation were expected to become less important during this response, although experts initially expected the change to occur over a longer period.
Other states, including Michigan and New York, have dropped contact tracing, citing the latest increase in cases. And Seaman Unified School District 345 said Monday it would also suspend research work.
County health departments would also no longer be required to contact the trace, according to Dennis Kriesel, executive director of the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments, which was cheered by overwhelmed counties.
“No one was keeping pace, so getting official state clearance that there was no wait to continue contact tracing went really well,” he said. . “Everybody was like, ‘We just can’t do it.'”
Andrew Bahl is a senior reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at abahl@gannett.com or by phone at 443-979-6100.
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