Pa. officials urge people with covid to cooperate with contact tracing

The Pennsylvania Department of Health, in step with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will begin prioritizing covid-19 contact tracing and case investigation efforts as cases surge and fewer people cooperate with tracers and investigators.

Pennsylvania’s positivity rate rose to 11% this week, with more than 34,700 new cases reported over the past seven days, according to Michael Huff, the state’s director of testing and contact tracing efforts. The surging cases and test positivity percentage led the CDC to recommend triaging both case investigations and contact tracing efforts.

Case investigations happen first when someone tests positive for the virus. Case investigators collect demographic information and information about where the first potential contact was made, Huff explained. From there, contact tracers reach out to all of an ill individual’s potential contacts since the time they tested positive.

The new guidance suggests that case investigators prioritize interviews with those who have tested positive within the past six days. Contact tracers from there, they suggest, focus on household contacts exposed in the past six days and people living in, working in or visiting congregate living facilities and other densely populated places.

After that, if resources allow, guidance suggests expanding the case investigation and contact tracing to people outside of the household who are at an increased risk of serious complications, are part of a cluster or who were exposed within the past six days.

Guidance also suggests that if more than 14 days have passed since the test was collected, then investigation and tracing shouldn’t be done.

“The covid-19 situation is fluid, and guidance continues to change over time even after plans are prepared and adopted,” Huff said. “Public health controls are only as effective as the willingness of individuals to carry them out.”

He noted that out of the more than 34,000 new cases reported over the past week, case investigators were only successful in reaching about 8,332.

Ninety-six people, he said, refused to quarantine.

“Why? Because people don’t want to answer the phone,” he said. “Because people do not realize how important it is to give the information we need to make certain we can control disease.”

The guidance comes as the number of Pennsylvanians being tested for the virus continues to grow, with the average daily number of PCR tests administered now standing about around 50,000. Antigen tests average around 4,700 per day, Huff said.

Over the course of the past two days, he said, 111,838 PCR tests and 13,634 antigen tests were administered. Since testing began, 5.5 million tests have been done across the state, representing about 43% of the population.