www.nytimes.com Open in urlscan Pro
151.101.129.164  Public Scan

Submitted URL: https://order.weshield.us/e3t/Btc/RI+113/cZZj304/VVppc14pbTSgW7QF0fW8W5rGvW8BHpjy4Gf16MN8DGmDm3kWFpV1-WJV7CgVjvW7sGMZN8X-j...
Effective URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/health/cdc-contact-tracing.html?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=205803132&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8umb2...
Submission: On March 07 via api from US — Scanned from US

Form analysis 0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Sections
SEARCH
Skip to contentSkip to site index
Health

Subscribe for $1/weekLog in

Monday, March 7, 2022
Today’s Paper
Log In
Health|The C.D.C. no longer recommends universal contact tracing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/health/cdc-contact-tracing.html
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 


THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

 * liveCovid-19 Updates
 * Coronavirus Map and Cases
 * Mask Questions, Answered
 * Long Covid’s Toll

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story


Coronavirus Pandemic


THE C.D.C. NO LONGER RECOMMENDS UNIVERSAL CONTACT TRACING.


A public health nurse with the Salt Lake County Health Department in Utah
explained contact tracing in 2020.Credit...Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

By Adeel Hassan

 * March 2, 2022



Almost two years after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention called for 100,000 contact tracers to contain the coronavirus, the
C.D.C. said this week that it no longer recommends universal case investigation
and contact tracing. Instead it encourages health departments to focus those
practices on high-risk settings.

The turning point comes as the national outlook continues to improve rapidly,
with new cases, hospitalizations and deaths all continuing to fall even as the
path out of the pandemic remains complicated. It also reflects the reality that
contact-tracing programs in about half of U.S. states have been eliminated.

Britain ended contact tracing last week, while Denmark and Finland are among
other nations that have scaled back the use of contact tracers. New York City
announced on Tuesday that it was ending its main contact-tracing program in late
April and moving toward treating the coronavirus as another manageable virus.

“This is a big change,” Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security, said in an interview on Tuesday. “It does reflect
what’s already happening in states and localities, particularly with Omicron.
There was no way contact tracing could keep up with that. Many of the cases are
not being reported, so there’s no way of knowing the incidence.”



Advertisement

Continue reading the main story



The original goal of contact tracing in the United States was to reach people
who have spent more than 15 minutes within six feet of an infected person and
ask them to quarantine at home voluntarily for two weeks even if they test
negative. The aim was to reduce transmission while Americans who tested positive
monitored themselves for symptoms during their isolation. Case investigation is
used to identify and understand cases, clusters and outbreaks that require
health department intervention.

But from the start of the pandemic, states and cities struggled to detect the
prevalence of the virus because of spotty and sometimes rationed diagnostic
testing and long delays in getting results.

Now the C.D.C. is pushing health departments to focus solely on high-risk
settings, like long-term care facilities, jails and prisons, and shelters. Many
immunocompromised Americans, though, feel left behind by the lifting of
precautions and restrictions across the country.

“The updated guidance is in response to changes in the nature of the pandemic
and the increasing availability of new tools to prevent transmission and
mitigate illness,” Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said Tuesday.

She said that the dominance of variants with very short incubation periods and
rapid transmissibility combined with high levels of infection- or
vaccine-induced immunity and the wide availability of vaccines for most age
groups made the change possible.



Advertisement

Continue reading the main story



Dr. Watson, who was the lead author of a 2020 report recommending that the
country have 100,000 contact tracers, said that she was worried that the new
guidance might lead to a dismantling of the infrastructure that was put into
place to support as many as 70,000 contact tracers, the peak number the country
reached during the winter surge of 2020.

“We anticipate that there will be a need for contact tracing,” she said, “so
some of the investments made in rebuilding the public health work force should
be used more broadly so we can call on them in the next emergency.”

More than 20 states still have statewide contact-tracing programs, according to
Hemi Tewarson, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health
Policy.

“I actually think that the federal government move is consistent with what
states are doing,” she said in an interview on Tuesday. “They’re already
concentrating contact tracing on high-risk settings.”

Ms. Tewarson said that contact tracing could not keep up with the Omicron surge,
and that it was no longer as effective a tool if people are testing at home and
not reporting results.

“As a longer term plan, this is going to be more sustainable,” she said. “We’re
at a different stage of the pandemic.”






Advertisement

Continue reading the main story





SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION

 * © 2022 The New York Times Company

 * NYTCo
 * Contact Us
 * Accessibility
 * Work with us
 * Advertise
 * T Brand Studio
 * Your Ad Choices
 * Privacy Policy
 * Terms of Service
 * Terms of Sale
 * Site Map
 * Canada
 * International
 * Help
 * Subscriptions



Support independent journalism.

See subscription options