Coping with COVID: Missouri works to expand contact tracing plans as cases rise

Lifted stay-at-home orders have made contact tracing harder, and with no statewide plans for tracing, some areas of the state wonder if they will be able to keep up with monitoring cases.

City and county health departments in Missouri are working to expand contact tracing plans, but some say they are still getting no direction or direct funding from the state, according to reporting by Missouri Business Alert.

Contact tracing is a labor-intensive tool used by public health departments to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19. It requires workers to interview people who test positive, track down people they may have had contact with and ask them to self-quarantine.

Gov. Mike Parson has declared that increased testing will help Missouri’s economy recover. However, there remains no statewide plan for contact tracing and some counties wonder if they will be able to keep up with monitoring cases over the next few months.

A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said that federal funds will be used by the state to develop an approach to contact tracing, although not funds have been spent yet, reports Missouri Business Alert. The spokesperson has also said that local counties can also use federal CARES Act money to fund their contact tracing efforts.

In early June, Randall Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said the state was working on a contact tracing plan.

While several areas of the state have decided to recede somewhat in opening plans, the state’s lifted stay-at-home order has made contact tracing harder.

As Missouri sees an increase in cases, over the past few weeks a high number of new cases has been reported in southwest Missouri in a handful of counties. The state is providing contact tracing support for the public health agencies in those counties, according to a news release from the Department of Health and Senior Services.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials estimates that to reopen communities at least 100,000 contact tracers nationwide are needed test individuals.

The Associated Press reports that with a population of just over 6 million, Missouri needs 1,870 contact tracers to have enough staff to contain the virus, according to those estimates.