Orange County health officials seek $530,000 in CARES Act funding to hire more coronavirus contact tracers

Request comes as county sees spike in cases

FILE - In this photo taken on April 20, 2020, a woman wearing protective face mask looks at her phone past a closed restaurant during a nationwide confinement to counter the COVID-19, in Paris. French lawmakers are set to vote on whether allowing or not France's contact-tracing app designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus that is raising privacy concerns. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File) (Francois Mori, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County’s public health officials are asking for additional funding to hire more coronavirus contact tracers to help trace the respiratory illness.

Dr. Raul Pino with the Florida Department of Health in Orange County submitted a proposal asking for $538,636 from the county’s CARES Act funding. The federal funds would help create 20 new contact tracing positions to help the county work toward eliminating COVID-19 from its communities.

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Contact tracers are often utilized as a public health defense against disease or as a virus control measure, according to the FDOH. These public health workers communicate with patients to develop a list of people they have been in contact with and notify them of the exposure. During the coronavirus pandemic, this strategy has been used to stop or mitigate the spread of COVID-19 as public health officials work to quarantine virus patients.

“We have 25 employees. Not everyone’s dedicated to tracing,” Pino said during a regularly scheduled coronavirus briefing Monday.

According to a budget breakdown within the proposal, 10 contact tracers would work for a six month period at $22 an hour. The other 10 contact tracers are expected to be employed for four months at the same hourly rate. Including a fringe budget, $512,556 of the funds requested would go to salaries.

The remaining funds would be used to purchase office supplies and laptops, according to the proposed budget.

“We don’t have a lot of activity for tracing on the weekend. We are receiving large cases from the weekend so we’re completely backed up the entire week,” Pino said.

As of Tuesday, Orange County has seen 3,437 coronavirus tests come back positive. Forty-seven people have died due to complications from the respiratory virus.

[CORONAVIRUS: Florida reevaluates COVID-19 response as state reports record-high 2,783 new cases]

The county’s top public health official said the additional contact tracers will help lighten the health department’s load as they would work through the weekend. They would be tasked with calling COVID-19 patients and conducting interviews to see where the virus is spreading and which communities it seems to be infecting.

The requested contact tracers are also expected to help report the number of positive coronavirus cases within the county.

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