Governor Kathy Hochul during a COVID-19 briefing on January 7, 2022. Photo: Don Pollard/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
January 12, 2022 —
New York State will no longer do contact tracing when someone tests positive for COVID-19.
The change comes as the state launches a new website to provide guidance on when someone should take a test and what to do if they test positive.
Governor Kathy Hochul says the omicron variant of the virus spreads very quickly and has a shorter incubation period before symptoms appear. Because of this, she says, contact tracing methods used earlier in the pandemic are no longer effective at disrupting chains of transmission. The tracing had largely been done by county health departments.
“We’re going to allow counties to decide if they want to contact the trace. We’ll leave that optional for them. It’s not a requirement,” Hochul said. “It’s just saying they don’t have to do it anymore.”
Hochul says overstretched local public health departments need to focus their energy and resources on convincing the remaining unvaccinated New Yorkers to get vaccinated, increasing the number of people who receive booster shots, and coordinating testing sites and the distribution of home test kits.
State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett says from now on, if someone tests positive, they should no longer expect a follow-up call from health officials.
“We are moving to more self-management when someone has tested positive or been exposed to someone who has tested positive, and less active outreach by departments,” Bassett said.
The health commissioner says the person should instead contact a new state website that offers guidance, based on recommendations from the federal Centers for Disease Control, for isolation and quarantine procedures.
Earlier in the pandemic, former Governor Andrew Cuomo partnered with Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Vital Strategies to set up a nationwide contact tracing program. State, which he called at the time a “cutting edge initiative”. Cuomo resigned in August over a sexual harassment scandal.
Bassett said the new site offering guidance on quarantine procedures would launch Wednesday morning, but by afternoon the address ny.gov/isolation or ny.gov/quarantine was still linked to the search site. State contacts, now defunct.
A spokesperson for the state health departmentErin Silk, said the new website will be “coming soon”. Silk also defended the state’s former contact tracing program, saying “New York State’s contact tracing program was one of the most robust in the country with 82% of cases and 87% contacts reached on average”.
Adam Shrier, spokesman for New York City’s contact tracing program, NYC Test & Trace Corps, said the city will continue its contact tracing program, saying “our mission ends when the pandemic ends. “. Communication will be by SMS.
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