GA Public Health Workers Strengthen Coronavirus Contact Tracking

Georgia — The Georgia Department of Public Health is increasing its workforce to increase COVID-19 contact tracking in Georgia. Contact tracking is used to identify and mitigate infection hotspots and prevent further spread of the virus.

Currently, there are about 250 contact tracers deployed throughout the state. To date, more than 3,800 individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 have been contacted and nearly 13,000 contacts have been identified.

In partnership with the CDC Foundation, the Deployment Coordinator and Training and Learning Coordinators have joined the Ministry of Public Health’s COVID-19 Response Team. Together, these individuals oversee the training and deployment of the hundreds of contact tracers employed by the department. They work closely with 18 public health districts to ensure that operational issues and staffing needs are addressed and that performance indicators established by the Public Health Department and district leaders are met.

The Public Health Department’s goal is to deploy more than 1,000 contact tracers within a few weeks to enhance their contact tracking efforts. Training of 200 new contact tracers and 70 medical students and masters of public health candidates who have joined the Department of Public Health in the past two weeks is ongoing.

Get the latest updates on the new Georgia coronavirus. Sign up for free news alerts and newsletters In your patch town.

This came after Georgia reported more than 1,500 deaths from the coronavirus. As of Thursday afternoon, Georgia Public Health Service 1,527 deaths from COVID-19 were reported.

The latest Georgia figures also show 35,858 confirmed cases, with 1,513 ICU admissions, 6,345 admissions, and 285,881 tests. Since then, an increase of 613 cases, 47 deaths, more than 33 ICU hospitalizations Wednesday afternoon..

All counties with the most confirmed cases are located in or near the Atlanta metro. Fulton has 3,621 cases and 158 deaths. DeKalb killed 2,644 cases and 74 people. 2,532 cases of Gwinnett and 101 deaths. There were 2,334 cases of Cobb and 128 deaths. There were 2,119 cases of halls and 37 deaths.

Along with additional contact tracers, the Ministry of Public Health is introducing a new online monitoring tool developed by Google / MTX to make contact tracking more efficient. Once a COVID-19 case has been identified, public health staff will work with the individual to remind them where they went with everyone who was in close contact with the potentially infected person. The contacts identified in this interview were called by trained Public Health staff to indicate they were exposed to COVID-19, enrolled in Public Health’s symptom surveillance and self-quarantined for 14 days. Ask to notify you that you need to. After exposure.

The web-based portal allows identified contacts to easily answer health and symptom questions related to COVID-19. If the contact reports a symptom, the system will prompt you to call 911 in case of an emergency or consult your healthcare provider if you are sick and need medical attention. Individuals with mild symptoms who do not require medical care will be provided with information on how to schedule the COVID-19 test.

Contacts will receive a 14-day daily text message informing them to report any symptoms through the monitoring tool. The contact will also receive information about what to do if you are ill or ill. Individuals who do not report daily will be contacted by the Public Health Service. If you do not want to use the online system or receive text messages, you can contact the Public Health Department directly to report your symptoms.

Confidentiality is important for successful contact tracking. Tracking Georgia contacts is completely confidential. No information is shared about the identities of people who test positive and those who may have been exposed. Contact tracking in Georgia does not use GPS or Bluetooth technology to track movement. Monitoring tools do not collect any data other than the data entered by your contacts.

see next: