Health department scrambles to catch up with contact tracking

Colombia — With an increasing number of cases of coronavirus in central Missouri, the Department of Health is struggling to keep track of contacts.

The county reported 39 cases Thursday, the highest number of days a day throughout the pandemic. On Tuesday, Missouri passed 1,000 deaths.

“Our contact-tracking efforts are quickly overwhelming and the positive rates continue to rise,” said Stephanie Browning, director of Public Health and Social Welfare, Columbia/Boone County.

According to a news release, the positive rate (the percentage of tests that returned positive) rose to 12% this week. The first week of May was 0.4%.

The Department of Health has set a goal of trying to reach all patients within 24 hours after being notified of a positive test, said Scott Claddy, Deputy Director of the Department of Health. After that, we will try to notify anyone who may have come into contact with the patient during the infection.

“That was our goal so far,” he said. “Yes, I’m not sure if we can achieve it in every case we get (Thursday).”

According to Klady, the department was lagging behind by contacting COVID-19 patients and their recent contacts on Monday. But 39 cases from Thursday overwhelmed the department’s contact tracer. He said that, in reality, the department might need to change its goal of contacting patients within 48 hours instead of 24 hours.

The Ministry of Health also had to reduce check-in with patients. At the beginning of the pandemic, patients were informed daily about the entire quarantine. Currently, there are so many active cases that departmental staff can help patients with severe symptoms, or when patients have difficulty obtaining groceries, paying rent, or meeting the necessities of their nature. Check in daily only.

In order to handle the increased case load, the department is training more of its staff to do contact tracking, Cladee said. They brought department retirees and people from the community with a public health background. Starting next week, they will hire city officials from outside the trained department to receive assistance.

Another way departments are trying to mitigate problems is Through a new data collection software program called REDCap.. This software provides contact tracers with an easy-to-see database of all those who need to reach. No contact tracer is needed due to the text messaging feature that allows the software to automatically send text to contacts and patients.

Too social

Clardy believes that the recent rise in COVID-19 cases is due to the passage of social distance.

“The real problem is that people are outside the community, especially those under the age of 30 who are not practicing good social distance,” Clardy said. “They are gathering with friends and all eight or all ten of them are symptomatic and probably positive if they know the following: In the meantime, they go out and finally Will be positive.”

Krady stressed the need to do better in a social environment.

“I think it’s a difficult relationship with a household, but going out and drinking, drinking from the same cup, hugging, and touching is not what we have to do now,” he says. Said.

According to Klady, young people who are infected with the virus are usually less serious and are a more serious problem than they seem.

“I think the problem is that there are no symptoms, or the symptoms are mild, and I may only have allergies, so spending a lot of time around other people who are very vulnerable to bad results. He said.

This includes grandparents, relatives with diabetes, or friends with compromised immune systems.

“That is, it’s not just the group’s problems (the young people with the virus),” he said. “It’s a problem for everyone.”

Kradi also thinks people need to be more careful while waiting for test results. According to Klady, people need to go home and quarantine until they get a result, and if the result is positive, they need to stay quarantined until the Department of Health calls and gives instructions. He said it would be very helpful if people who had a positive reaction started to make a list of people they might have contacted within the past few days.