44 states and D.C. now have plans to expand their contact tracing workforce, reaching a total of 66,197 workers — an increase of 30,000 since NPR's survey first published 10 days ago.
Of the places that responded to NPR or have released this information in press releases, eight are positioned to surpass that 30 workers per 100,000 threshold: Alaska, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, New York and North Dakota.
Granted, North Dakota and Alaska have among the smallest populations of all states — hiring several hundred contact tracers to meet the need is certainly easier than onboarding 20,000 in California. "We're spending trillions of dollars on the economic aspects of this, which is important," she says."But if we're not willing to put in that same effort to the public health side to actually control this and to reduce the economic impacts — fighting this at its source — that doesn't make sense to me."Not every state responded to NPR's request.
measures. Spokesperson Nancy Nydam of the Georgia Department of Public Health told NPR that"the total number of contact tracers will vary widely by [health] district, so we are not yet able to put an exact number to it." She added that the state was engaging with medical students and possibly the National Guard, and that more information would be available in the coming days.
States that said they're seeking to expand contact tracing capacity are getting creative about finding the workforce. Nevada said it was recruiting volunteers for"a dramatic expansion" of its contact tracing capacity. Oklahoma is training fourth-year medical residents to do contact tracing. Maine has recruited some recently retired epidemiologists. Georgia and Iowa are planning to call on the National Guard.
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