Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker outlines ‘massive’ statewide contact tracing program
Gov. J.B. Pritzker outlined a plan Friday to build a “massive” statewide contact-tracing program in an effort to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Contact tracing was used successfully in countries such as South Korea to control the spread of COVID-19. It’s the process of following up with people who have had contact with a person who tested positive for coronavirus, said Dr. Wayne Duffus, the state’s new acting chief epidemiologist who spoke at the governor’s daily news briefing in Chicago.
Local health departments have already been conducting contract tracing since the pandemic began, but the state plans to ramp up those efforts dramatically.
The effort could cost close to $80 million and will begin later this month, the governor said.
The endeavor will mean tracing who the more than 56,000 patients with COVID-19 in Illinois had contact with in the previous two weeks. Pritzker estimated the state will need at least 30 workers per 100,000 residents, or possibly more.
Undergraduate and graduate students, retirees, local health officials, volunteers and community health workers will conduct this work, he said. But the state will hire additional workers to conduct contact tracing in the coming weeks.
Those workers will have to undergo training for confidentiality and on how to use tracing technology, the governor said.
Contact tracers will contact a person who tested positive for COVID-19 through a cell phone application, text, email, phone call or, when none of those options work, an in-person visit. Then, they will ask that person to retrace their steps over the past two weeks and gather a list of people they may have come into contact with.
The tracer will then contact those individuals and do three things: notify them they came into contact with a COVID-19 patient, recommend they seek a test and self-isolate, and offer resources on how to access needed assistance to prepare for self-isolation such as alternate housing, food delivery or medication.
Illinois public health officials reported 3,137 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 105 additional deaths statewide Friday for a total of 56,055 cases and 2,457 deaths.
Southwestern Illinois coronavirus cases
Here’s a breakdown of the 1,166 COVID-19 cases in southwestern Illinois as of Thursday afternoon. These numbers are updated by 4 p.m. daily at BND.com.
- St. Clair: 482 positives, 37 deaths, 2,080 tests administered, 50 tests pending
- Madison: 334 positives, 21 deaths, 75 hospitalizations, 98 recoveries
- Clinton: 106 positives, four deaths, 454 tests administered, 19 recoveries
- Randolph: 104 positives, one death, five hospitalizations, 53 recoveries
- Monroe: 69 positives, 10 deaths
- Macoupin: 30 positives, 593 tests administered, 24 tests pending, 21 recoveries
- Perry: 13 positives
- Jersey: 12 positives, one death, seven recoveries
- Washington: 10 positives, seven recoveries
- Bond: Five positives, one death, 109 tests administered, nine tests pending, three recoveries
- Calhoun: One positive, one recovery
This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 3:06 PM.
