Andrew County COVID-19 Contact Tracers (5-18-20)

Andrew County COVID-19 Contact Tracers (5-18-20)

Cases... driving up demand for disease detectives... we spoke to andrew county's contact tracers about why their jobs just got a lot harder.

Statewide -- as cities and counties open up hoffman, andrew county health dept.: the number of contacts for a possible case have went up.covid-19 contact tracing becomes more crucial hoffman, health dept.: "our first batch of cases, i would say, there was very few contacts for each positive.

."

And more difficult.

Jayne white, andrew county health dept.: some of our cases are related to triumph the situation down there in the last few couple weeks oh, that come from that initial spike."

The andrew county health department has been tracking each of the 17 residents that tested positive recovered.

Jayne white, andrew county health dept.: the last few cases that we've had though, have not necessarily been connected to a known outbreak situation.it only takes one person infected with the virus to spread it to a half dozen others county health dept.: it takes a lot of time to do intense contact tracing and to do those things so not many days go by that we don't work during the day or evenings at some point.the idea behind contact tracing is simple -- when someone tests positive, a public health worker tracks down all of their contacts calling, emailing, messaging to get everyone who was exposed to go home and isolate.

Jayne white, andrew county health dept.: we have had to look at staff and you know and how we deal with those situations cause it does get tough especially as we are seeing more contacts, it just takes longer to work the cases.

The work for the andrew county health department was much simpler when people were staying home....andrew hoffman, andrew county health dept.: we are finding out that each of these positive cases has even more contacts and so that, we have to make a lot more phone calls, and touch a lot more people trying to find out where they've been because people are moving around a lot morebut if you want to help make their lives a little bit easier -- you can.

And here's how.andrew hoffman, andrew county health dept.: it's really important for us to get out the message that yes things are opening up in the united states, in missouri, in the counties surrounding us, but people still need to maintain that social distance.reporting in savannah, madeline mcclain kq2 news.

Andrew county is also hosting it's own community testing clinic this friday... you can head over to their website to register -- priority is given to residents but it's open to any missouri resident -- 14 and older.

But you may want to hurry -- only 50 spots