Contact Tracing Data Helps Guide Illinois Decision-Makers

Source: GovTech Published: November 25th, 2020

(TNS) — Since the start of the pandemic, Dr.  John Schneider  has interviewed more than 100 people with COVID-19, and in nearly all cases he managed to pin down how they got infected.

“I think there’s one person I’ve had who said, ‘I don’t know how I got it,’” said Schneider, an infectious disease specialist affiliated with the University of Chicago who is director of the 55th Street Howard Brown Clinic, where he also does case investigations and contact tracing. Schneider says the man did visit a barbershop, so they are checking to see if that might be the source.

“But everyone else is like, ‘Oh yeah, so-and-so and so-and-so is sick now too.’ Or ‘so-and-so got tested and they were positive too,’” Schneider continued. “They all know how they got it. They got it from someone in their friendship, or in their household network, who got it from work or some other mechanism.”

Contact tracing for COVID-19 has gotten off to a slow start in Illinois, with the state still short of its initial goal of 3,800 people doing that work. And now, with infections soaring, caseloads are overwhelming tracers’ ability to slow the spread of the virus by tracking down contacts and getting them to quarantine.

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Photo by Antonio Gabola on Unsplash