EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) - The rise in COVID-19 cases is putting a strain on lots of people and business.
For disease investigators in Eau Claire County, the spike is leading to challenges in working to contain the virus.
Monday, Eau Claire County set a new daily record with 178 new cases.
Tuesday, the state of Wisconsin also set a record with 5,262 new cases.
“In the past two months, our seven day average has increased by more than 400 percent. With this many new cases each day, our contact tracers are overwhelmed,” said Wisconsin DHS Secretary-designee Andrea Palm.
Leeshia Crayton helps lead a team of about 30 disease investigators at the Eau Claire City-County Health Department.
With the increase in cases, the department is in need of more help saying currently it can go through 80 cases a day.
“We want our disease investigators to at least get through at least 6 or 7 cases a day, so we kind of want to build up to that capacity that as you see right now we’re getting 100 a day,” explained Crayton.
After the county is alerted to a new case, a disease investigator tries to get in touch with that person within 24 hours to find out their symptoms, get information on all close contacts, gives them guidance on how to isolate, as well as finding out if the person has any needs.
“We’ve tried to condense our interviews as much as possible to get the most pertinent information. So an interview might only take about 20 minutes, but if you’re trying to call somebody throughout an entire day it kind of lags back on the time that we have to contact other people to give those cases that information,” said Crayton.
Unlike the beginning of the pandemic, the health department cannot call all close contacts of positive cases as the number of infected goes up, which is why the department wants those who test positive to tell their contacts.
That’s part of the reason Crayton says it’s important people avoid large gatherings and practice social distancing when possible.
“It does help a lot when people are keeping their circles as small as possible, because then you know if you’re hanging out with the same group of people then you know exactly yes, I was hanging out with X,Y, and Z and I know that I was with them on these three days,” she said.
Because of the increased demand, the City-County Health Department is hiring more temporary disease investigators.
Anyone looking to speak with a disease investigator can contact ECCHD at (715) 831-7425.
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Contact tracing growing more difficult as COVID-19 pandemic intensifies - WEAU
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