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Dominique Bruneau Saavedra spends endless hours on the phone as a Covid-19 contact tracer, informing people in San Miguel County, Colorado that they have been exposed to the virus and tracing their recent contacts.
But the work doesn’t stop there.
Saavedra works in a team of 15, but is just one of three Spanish speaking contact tracers in the county’s health and environment department, which serves a predominantly rural community largely supported by tourism. winter. Increasingly, she spends her time talking to people about food aid programs or answering questions about affordable internet access.
“A lot of our people work in restaurants, and that’s where they get their food. And when you can’t go to work, how do you do it? ” she said. “With kids in school, when they have to study online because they have to be quarantined, sometimes they don’t have the Internet.”
Even though approved vaccines light up the end of the tunnel, public health experts say it will be months before the United States nears containment. As contact tracers struggle to keep up with the surge in coronavirus cases in the United States, they are increasingly receiving calls from people turning to social services for needs such as food and child care. ‘children.
By guiding those who have been exposed to these resources, contact tracers inspire them to self-isolate and not expose others to the virus, said Crystal Watson, senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who is focusing on the global response to Covid-19. It is an essential service that helps mitigate the spread of the virus, she added.
“We have contact tracers and public health workers who shop for people’s groceries and get all their medicines, organize child or adult care for people at home who may need it,” he said. she declared. “And in some cases, providing replacement income, even for people who are in hourly shifts and who will not be paid for the weeks they are not quarantined.”
In addition to juggling her day job at a local nonprofit organization, Saavedra works contact tracing for a large portion of the Spanish speaking residents in her area. Often, this involves explaining public health measures to the people she reaches and connecting them to community resources they might not otherwise be aware of.
Comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
In Alaska, Kris Knudsen, a contact tracer with the University of Alaska Anchorage, said the work can be intimidating, but it is both impactful and necessary.
“We want to put ourselves out there for hours and hours and hours every day,” she said. “And then wake up at 3 in the morning, say, ‘Oh my God, what did I forget to say?’ Or: ‘Oh my God, I forgot to arrange for food delivery to this family or diapers to this family.’ “
More than five months after the expiration of the $ 600 per week supplement on Coronavirus Assistance, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act to Federal Unemployment Benefits, with Americans not having the opportunity to work at distance have been forced to return to their jobs in person and potentially themselves and those around them to Covid-19.
A Pew survey conducted in July – when the daily increase in cases was only a fraction of what it is now – showed that of the 32% of Americans who say it would be “very or somewhat difficult ‘To quarantine, about 40% the inability to miss work is the main reason.
“If they don’t have money for food, they can’t survive anyway,” Watson said. “So what is needed: Employers must offer paid time off to people who need to be quarantined, not just people who need to take sick leave.”
“A lot of people are dying and a lot of people are sick and miserable – and have a hard time making the bills at this point.”
A record 50 million Americans could experience food insecurity due to the coronavirus pandemic this year, including about 17 million children, according to nonprofit Feeding America. Contact tracers have become vital sources of information to help those exposed to the coronavirus avoid going hungry.
Kailee Leingang, a contact tracer at the University of North Dakota, said there should be federal guidelines on contact tracing across the country.
“A lot of people are dying and a lot of people are sick and miserable – and even having a hard time making the bills at this point. And there doesn’t seem to be enough help, ”she said.
But as millions of people suffer economic hardship and hospital beds fill up across the country as cases increase, even the basics of contact tracing have become more difficult.
Community transmission is so widespread that contact tracing cannot contain the virus on its own, Watson said. But, she added, it can still reduce transmission to a certain level and save lives as a result.
After the winter push, contact tracing will become even more important in settling the remaining embers of the virus as the general public await large-scale vaccinations, she said.
“Once we get down to lower levels of transmission – where a large portion of the affected population can be identified and contacts located – then it can be used as a finer tool to really dramatically reduce transmission and bring us back to a better sense of normalcy faster, ”she says.
But until the community’s spread is reduced to a manageable level, contact tracers continue to work around the clock to flatten the curve as the United States grapples with what is expected to be the deadliest days of the pandemic. The positions are paid and require specialized training.
Leingang wakes up at 5 a.m. to finish nursing school before turning to her workload in North Dakota every day. She then works from sunrise to hours after sunset, sometimes reaching contacts too late. “I remember each of the names of my cases that died,” she said.
“We’re not necessarily a nurse or a doctor or someone like a frontline police officer,” she said. “I don’t think you really understand the heartache and the emotional roller coaster you go through as a contact tracer until you do.”
But Leingang says she won’t give up: “Every case I contact saves at least five other people in the community from what happens to them.”
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