Polk expands to 60 contact tracers, still lags new COVID cases

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.