The contact tracer is a new position around the country connected to the pandemic. They don’t face the risk or stress of frontline health care workers, but are playing their own crucial role to try and isolate COVID-19 cases and stop the spread.
Radio IQ checked in with a few of them in a Southwest Virginia region with some of the highest rates for cases.
Contact Tracers are responsible for calling those who may have been exposed to someone who has tested positive for the virus. Case Investigators conduct interviews with those suspected or confirmed as COVID-19 cases, and determine whether they’re are part of a group with a high risk of transmission.
Kris Landrum has done both jobs, asking contacts to figure out who they saw, where they were, and what they did over a period of time.
“You ask them to look at their social media, to see if perhaps they had gone out with someone," she said. "If you have any holidays or anything that you can use as markers- for instance, there was the election. There was Veteran’s Day. If you have little clues like that, that’s always very helpful.”
After a long career in communications, Landrum says this job seemed like a nice transition. She says the work does not let up, with some in her position logging up to 60 hours a week.
While some are reclutant to talk with her, Landrum said most of those she reaches out to are more than willing to do the right thing.
"So I don't know that they're actually really surpised so much as a little discouraged," she said. "They thought they had done the right thing, and yet they got it anyway."
Like Landrum, Claudia Graham also works in Martinsville, where COVID-19 positivity rates in the West Piedmont Health District have been as high as 17-percent in recent days. Graham, a native of Ecuador, also serves one of two bilingual case investigators in the area.
“Some people from the Hispanic community who are living here for years, decades – sometimes I find people who are here for 30 years, and they don’t speak the English," she said.
Graham was a family physician back home, but is now in this job as she completes a degree in public health. She said many of her contacts ask for help in other ways.
“Most of the Hispanic community are working in factories, and most of the factories were affected with this pandemic, because they have to close at some point, and most of the people lost their job," she said. Graham said she has been asked to provide a letter to those who are out of work due to the pandemic, with hoping of finding new employment.
She also knows many low-income residents who live in the same space, facing a constant challenge.
“(Once) every hour, say it’s time to wash your hands, and everybody has to wash their hands," Graham said. "It’s time to clean the surfaces. Most of the families are taking are advice very well.”
She said many of those she calls hear her accent, and think she’s selling something. Zac Foutz works as a case investigator supervisor, and says he often feels that way.
“I have to sell people on what we’re doing, and explain to them the process," he said.
Foutz already holds a bachelor’s degree in public health from Liberty University, and stumbled upon his job while looking for an internship to finish his masters. Like his co-workers, Foutz says there are times he’s had to convince people that COVID-19 is real.
“If you don’t believe that it exists, then you don’t educate yourself on all the protocols and all the guidelines that exist when you do get it, and it can be kind of a shock and awe for some people, cause they don’t know what to do necessarily do, and they come to us looking for all the answers," Foutz said. "It stinks. The case investigators work their tails off, they’re calling people all day, filling out information, asking questions. It can really take a toll, especially when you get met with a really stark response of ‘I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t like you.”
All three public health employees admit they’ve also had their share of contacts who ignore a phone call they don’t recognize. But they also find examples of real compassion.
Landrum says one young man she worked with had tested positive, and briefly tried to stay with friends, since his mom is undergoing chemotherapy.
"It didn’t work out," she said. "He realized that he needed to go back home. So he crawled through his bedroom window, and put a towel under the door, so that he didn’t shed virus for his mother to pick up.”
To date, the Virginia Department of Public Health has hired 850 contact tracers and just over 500 case investigators, and local health departments can always seek more. A spokesman says Virginia is also starting up regional surge teams to help these employees.
The Centers for Disease Control and other sources have dedicated $140-million to fund these positions across the US through the year 2022.
Meanwhile, the Mount Rogers Health District in Southwest Virginia is suspending part of its contact tracing outreach. It’s now relying on patients to notify their contacts, and tell them they need to quarantine. On Friday, the Virginia Department of Health said the region had a positivity rate of just under 21-percent.
Health District Director Dr. Karen Shelton tells the Roanoke Times they’ve hired dozens of contact tracers and case investigators, but transmission is too widespread now to continue as they have been.
