Massachusetts, considered the U.S. leader in contact tracing efforts, has significantly scaled back resources that the state was putting towards the initiative, according to a Boston Globe report.
Contact tracing—identifying individuals who may have come into contact with an infected person and then collecting data on these contacts—has helped stop previous deadly outbreaks, but the current COVID-19 virus presents a far greater challenge given that there’s been millions of confirmed cases in the U.S. already. Nonetheless, over the last few months, public health officials have ramped-up efforts to monitor and contain new cases through this surveillance-based approach.
One of those states leading contact tracing efforts has been Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative, a program focused on reaching out to the contacts of confirmed positive COVID-19 patients to help others who have been potentially exposed to the virus, had initially employed nearly 2,000 contact tracers—some nurses, some community health center staff, and some from the collaborative itself.
However, according to the Globe’s report, the state's multimillion-dollar joint contact tracing effort with the Boston-based Partners in Health—which was the first of its ilk in the country—has now dropped the number of staffers to approximately 700. The state’s governor, Charlie Baker, had committed significant resources to build a central COVID-19 contact tracing force, but said this week that the effort simply had more staff than needed because the pandemic has been easing in Massachusetts.
The rate of positive cases in the state has hovered around 2 percent since mid-June. According to a local Boston.com report on July 9, the state reported 25 new COVID-19 deaths and 177 new cases on that day. Overall, Massachusetts has 111,000 confirmed cases and more than 8,000 deaths.
According to the Globe report, local health officials have complained the effort has been plagued with computer glitches, inadequate training, and poor communication. That's lead to delays in contacting infected residents, prompting some cities and towns to opt out of the initiative in favor of focusing on their own, in-house contact tracing efforts, according to the report.
During a May webinar presentation sponsored by the Alliance for Health Policy, KJ Seung, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and chief of strategy and policy for the Massachusetts COVID Response group, who also works with the state’s contact tracing collaborative, spoke to the difficulties of contact tracing, noting it’s not just an epidemiological or data collection exercise.
In that webinar, Seung pointed out that one of the biggest lessons learned in Massachusetts has been that in order to successfully reach the most vulnerable communities hit hardest by COVID-19, there is a need to leverage the expertise of local organizations that have already been in contact with folks in these neighborhoods. This could mean local boards of health or public health departments that have “decades of experience working with communities and people, and making sure they are linked into services. Community health centers are also important to work with. They have [experience] working with those who speak different languages and developing personal relationships,” he said, adding that this intimate local knowledge is “priceless.” He further stated that contact tracing is quite difficult to do as a volunteer, and these tracing programs will be needed until a vaccine is developed.
The Globe additionally reported that the state has agreed to pay Partners in Health up to $55 million through December for the initiative, with two other companies additionally receiving a total of $39 million for related work.
According to WBUR in Boston, Partners in Health said it's rolling out improvements, including a new team of local health liaisons to improve communication with local health departments that'll start Monday. It's also setting a goal of reaching out to contacts of infected persons within 24 hours of receiving a new case.
