Running head: CONTACT TRACING 1

Discussion on Contact Tracing

(Author’s name)

(Institutional Affiliation)

(Date)
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Based on figure 1, finding everyone who is suspected to have been in contact with

infected people is perhaps the most daunting task in the entire contact tracing process (ASTHO,

2020). . Finding people who may have been exposed is dependent on secondary voluntary

feedback. An infected individual may opt not to give out all the information required by contact

tracers to enable them to find everyone on the chain of infection. For instance, since

quarantine is mandatory for all infected people, family members may opt not to give out

information to prevent mandatory quarantine of the entire family. People are avoiding

quarantine since it is inconveniencing their social life. Conspiracy theorists compound the

situation by dismissing the severity of the COVID-19. Further, there have been numerous

incidences of people not knowing how they got COVID-19. Others only come to know they had

COVID-19 due to the presence of antibodies in their body. By not finding everyone means that

the virus will stay in circulation.

As a County Health Director, I'll be most interested in the number of suspected contacts

my team has identified, the success levels in reaching all the contacts, and how rapidly patients

are isolated (CDC, 2020). The key point in contact tracing is breaking the chain. If data indicates

that there is a disparity between the contacts reached and the number of people tested, it

means there is a loophole in the system. It is possible that even one case that has been

identified as a possible contact that my team fails to test can start another chain of infections.

The data will be a starting point in a troubleshooting process to identify why there is a

discrepancy between contacts identified and tests. Possible reasons may be understaffing, non-
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compliance, or unavailability of contacts within my area of jurisdiction. All these factors must

be accounted for to determine the efficiency of the contact tracing program.

References

Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. (2020). A Coordinated, National Approach
to Scaling Public Health Capacity for Contact Tracing and Disease Investigation.
https://www.astho.org/COVID-19/A-National-Approach-for-Contact-Tracing/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). Case Investigation and Contact Tracing:
Part of a Multipronged Approach to Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/principles-contact-tracing.html