MONDAY, May 4, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Many U.S. states are preparing to emerge from their quarantine cocoons, hoping to get their economies back on track.
But experts worry those states haven’t yet created the public health infrastructure needed to reopen safely without causing a second wave of COVID-19 infections.
In particular, tens of thousands of new public health workers trained in contact tracing are needed to hopefully prevent future outbreaks in local communities, warned Crystal Watson, senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Contact tracing “is the best tool we have to manage this on an ongoing basis and allow our economy to open up again,” said Watson, who recently co-authored a major report on the continued role of the public health in reopening America.
Watson estimates that the United States will need at least 100,000 trained contact tracing workers across the country, the bare minimum, to keep COVID-19 at a manageable level.
There are currently around 30,000 contact tracers, Watson said. That may not seem like much, but it’s better than at the start of this national emergency, when there were only 2,200 trained contact tracers in US state health departments.
Last week, the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced plans to build a national force of 6,400 to 17,000 contact tracers — a base of 30 tracers per 100,000 that can be expanded. if COVID-19 cases start to surge.
“One of the most important steps we can take to reopen the economy in the safest way possible is to create a contact tracing system. When social distancing is relaxed, contact tracing is our best hope for isolate the virus when it appears – and keep it isolated,” former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is helping lead the effort, said in a statement.
How contact tracing works
Contact tracing is essentially detective work, experts said.
“It is used to break chains of transmission, to manage outbreaks of this virus at a continued low level, to prevent future waves or outbreaks of cases, and to allow us to return to work in a much safer way,” said Watson.
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