NEW YORK CITY — New York’s massive COVID-19 contact tracing program will end in April, according to reports.
The end of Test and Trace, first reported by The New York Times, represents another recent step in a return to pre-pandemic normalcy in the city.
Ted Long, the program’s executive director, acknowledged this in an email reported by The Times.
“Trace will end at the end of April – giving us a final eight weeks to complete your current work and prepare New Yorkers for the next phase as we learn to live with Covid,” Long wrote to contact Tracers, the Times reported.
The COVID-19 tracing program reached more than a million contacts during its duration, health officials said.
The effort began in June 2020 amid the first wave of the coronavirus in the city. Former mayor Bill de Blasio and health officials hailed it as a way to stop the spread of the virus.
But the wide availability of vaccines, home COVID-19 testing and better defenses against the coronavirus have increasingly pushed the program out of the spotlight.
COVID-19 cases hit an all-time confirmed peak of 46,000 daily cases in January as the omicron variant spread through the city. But since then, coronavirus levels have dropped by 99% and elected officials have begun to roll back vaccination and masking mandates.
Read the full New York Times article here.
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