SPRINGFIELD — The Clark County Combined Health District has taken on 14 contact tracers in the last month. Their jobs are critical to pinpointing COVID-19 hotspots and stopping the spread.
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Contact tracing is a practice that’s used for all communicable diseases, but normally the responsibility would be shared among three existing staff members at the health district along with their other job duties.
“When we interview a person that has tested positive, the faster we can get ahold of them, the more information that they can give us -- the faster we can stop the spread of illness,” said CCCHD Assessment and Surveillance Supervisor Anna Jean Sauter.
In addition to the 14 new hires, whose sole responsibility is contact tracing, the health district would like to hire more contact tracers – especially if an applicant can speak Spanish or Creole because of pockets of the county’s population that speaks those languages.
The daily responsibilities of the contact tracers involve making calls to those who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their close contacts, which means anyone who a positive case may have been less than six feet apart from – for more than 15 minutes.
Contact tracers will also make initial contact with someone who is awaiting the results of their COVID-19 test.
“(We) try to paint that picture of their unique situation on how this could be impacting the population and then see if there's any way we can support them in quarantine or isolation,” said Daniel Kuder, one of the health district’s contact tracers, who is also a public health graduate from Capital University.
Contact tracers will also coordinate resources like grocery delivery for those who cannot leave their house if they are quarantined.
Kuder said he’s also had to give people on the phone peace of mind, as they deal with what can be a very difficult and frightening situation.
“I feel like if there was any time to start (a career in public health), I’m happy to do it right now where I’m just diving head first into this giant situation,” he said.
Currently, Clark County sits just under 400 cases – 321 confirmed cases and 74 probable cases.
On Saturday, the health district will be conducting widespread testing for employees at the Dole plant in Springfield, which is one of the county’s largest workplace outbreaks.