Sara Megan Walsh of News Chief - LAKELAND — Polk County health officials are rapidly bringing new contact tracers on board, but are finding it difficult to keep up with COVID-19′s rapid surge. In May, there were 14 employees for the Florida Department of Health in Polk working to track the novel coronavirus’ spread. The county averaged about 15 new cases per day, according to the state’s daily reports. However, the Contract Tracing Workforce Estimator, created by the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at George Washington University, suggests Polk needs at least 1,493 contact tracers based an average of 237 new cases per day. Read More.
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More interactions create more work for contact tracing teams that have to reach more people and convince them to isolate. A spokesperson for Florida’s Department of Health said the state has more than 2,300 people working on contact tracing. That is less than 10% of the 33,000 tracers needed, according to the Contact Tracing Workforce Estimator, a simulator developed by the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at the George Washington University. The tool estimates that the nation needs more than 218,000 contact tracers overall,
though the number continues to grow alongside the uptick in U.S. cases since states reopened. There is no reliable estimate for how many contact tracers are working across the entire U.S. Read More. MIAMI – Florida needs at least 3,232 contact tracers, the detectives who investigate COVID-19 infections during the coronavirus pandemic. Miami-Dade County needs at least 415. Broward needs at least 293. This is according to the Contact Tracing Workforce Estimator, a database that public health experts are updating to help local authorities to estimate the need each area has around the country. Read More.
They’re the ones who have the information.’ Miami-Dade waits on Florida for contact tracing7/5/2020 Dennis Pillion - Researchers at George Washington University estimated that Alabama would need more than 5,000 contact tracers to adequately do the job, in their Contract Tracing Workforce Estimator, based on factors such as the population size and number of new cases per day in the state. That group estimates that more than 200,000 contact tracers are needed nationwide. Read More.
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