Few contact tracers makes heavy work for Allen County Health Department

The Allen County Department of Health is operating with only a fraction of the ideal number of COVID-19 contact tracers.

The tracers are often working long hours and six-to-seven days a week to help protect the community.

Call huntington police or 9-1-1.

Contact tracing for covid-19 began at the beginning of the pandemic here in allen county.

But those in charge of the tracing are well short of the number of tracers needed.

Fox 55 caleb saylor explains how theye managing with so few tracers and how they plan to solve the issue.

E often refer to ou as small.

Health department contact tracers are just one step in helping slow the spread of covid-19.

They tell you if you should go to the hospital or just stay home, which is vital for not overwhelming hospital systems, something allen county health commissioner matthew sutter is concerned about as hospitalizations rise.

F we overwhelm the hospital they only can take as good of care of covid patients take they can care of other emergencies like heart attacks and victims of motor vehicle accidents.

While having tracers is good, ther a problem.

One measure put out by harvard says a county the size of allen should have one hundred contact tracers.

Department administrator mindy waldron says they only have 10 partly due to moneye nd space have been lucky enough to utilize some of the cares act dollars to add several contact tracers over the last several monte also limited by space, so we can only house as many as we can house.

So, righ what we t have.

Contact tracers work six to seven days a week, taking on twenty to thirty cases a day a difficult situation howee doing so with one of the highest efficiency rates in the state, reaching nearly 95% of the people they need to.

Waldron says they likely only need about 20 or so contact tracers to both do the job effectively and avoid burne currently y hiring, trying to fill those spots think if we can get a couple more, that will definitely assist for the next few months and then perhaps we bolster it again if funds allow.