Is COVID-19 tracing money going down ‘rathole’? A Pierce leader says so. She’s wrong
As COVID-19 cases climb to alarming new heights in Pierce County and across Washington, elected officials must be extra vigilant to support public health experts’ best practices for controlling the virus. This is a time to build up, not tear down.
Unfortunately, one Pierce County Council member prefers to undermine a key strategy espoused by experts all over the world. Last week Pam Roach doubled down on her outrageous claim that the county is “pouring millions of dollars down a rathole” with its contact-tracing program.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has trained a growing team of contact tracers (57 as of late this week). The job of these temporary TPCHD employees is to reach people who test positive for COVID, find out their close contacts in the previous 14 days and track down those individuals so they can take necessary precautions.
It’s a proven model of detective work that TPCHD has long used to limit the spread of diseases like tuberculosis and measles. And it’s a prudent use of $5.5 million in the fight against coronavirus — a fraction of the $158 million in federal CARES Act funding that Pierce County must use or lose by the end of 2020. Early in the pandemic, TPCHD officials allocated $12.2 million for contact tracing but later determined they could do it for less.
Contact tracing is a fundamental part of COVID-containment protocols adopted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Washington State Department of Health. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s infectious disease guru, underscored its importance during a pep talk to a group of California tracers this summer. “It’s extraordinarily important to get our arms around this outbreak by doing successful contact tracing,” Fauci said.
Clearly we can’t relax now, as the outbreak is slipping from our grasp before winter arrives. Pierce County’s new cases soared into triple digits for 11 of the last 14 days and hit a single-day high of more than 220 new cases Saturday. That was eclipsed Wednesday with a record 276 cases.
Leave it to Roach to unleash her well-known temper against the contact-tracing program, going on a tirade at a COVID budget update session last Thursday. “The tracing isn’t giving us any information that a high school biology student wouldn’t know,” said the soon-to-retire Sumner Republican. “We didn’t get out soon enough, and at this point it’s a waste of money.”
As with most Roach rants, there was a kernel of truth buried amid the scorn. Yes, a contact tracing team would have been more effective had it deployed earlier last spring, when the virus wasn’t as widespread. Today, as infections emerge all over — from households to workplaces, from colleges and childcare centers to places of worship — Roach is correct that people should assume they could be exposed anywhere and always mask up in public.
But using the microphone at a public meeting to condemn a widely accepted epidemiological practice was wrong. The newly elected County Council, including Roach’s successor, Hans Zeiger (R-Puyallup), must quickly establish a tone of collaboration and responsible public discourse.
The purpose of contact tracing isn’t to collect data for a spreadsheet or a science project. The purpose is to give people information about their health status, then follow the trail of hugs, handshakes, parties, lunch dates and other close connections, with the goal of tying off as many loose ends as quickly as possible.
The work seems to be paying off. As of Wednesday, 86.3 percent of contacts were reached within 48 hours of a positive case receipt, according to TPCHD’s online dashboard. The goal is at least 80 percent.
Nigel Turner, TPCHD’s communicable disease division director, gently reminded Roach that people in distress are getting meaningful help through the program, such as care packages of food and other staples for those who must isolate but don’t have a support network.
Keep in mind, too, that contact tracing is one of the mandatory linchpins of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Safe Start reopening plan. If TPCHD were to stop tracing, local residents would have to wait even longer to progress past Phase 2.
Money down a rathole? That’s a cynical way to describe a program that invests in neighbors helping neighbors, offering information and a potential lifeline in the midst of suffocating isolation.
It’s certainly not how we would characterize the bloodhound work needed to shorten the long reach of a terrible virus.
This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 2:00 PM.