More Testing & Contact Tracing To Help Colorado Flatten Coronavirus Curve
DENVER (CBS4) - On Wednesday, Gov. Jared Polis detailed an aggressive plan to grow testing across the state as well as identifying other key steps that will help flatten the curve. One of those is adding to the state's team of epidemiologists and increasing contact tracing.
"We have doubled the epidemiological team in the last two weeks from 31 people to 56, and its continuing to go up," he said.
CBS4 spoke with Dr. Lisa Miller, a professor of epidemiology at The Colorado School of Public Health at CU Anschutz, about the work being done by those on the front lines.
"I think we hear a lot about first responders in this pandemic, and I categorize a lot of the epidemiologists working on this in public health departments as first responders," she said.
While Miller isn't helping with data with the state, a number of students at the school have been recruited to track how the virus is spreading.
"Basically the contact tracing is pretty simple: identify who has the disease in this case, make sure they are isolated and staying home so they are not spreading it, then find out who they might have infected," she said.
Increased contact tracing is one of the tools they use to understand the virus. Polis believes it is one step to help flatten the curve.
In addition to doubling the size of the state's team, he is also arming them with a new tool to collect data.
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"If we want the best epidemiological response it requires more than just staff. It also requires all the technological tools we have to bare," Polis said in an afternoon briefing.
He says a public private partnership with companies, like Google, have allowed the state to launch the Colorado Symptom tracker. Individuals who choose to can get online and fill out a survey detailing their information and experience relating to COVID-19.
Miller says there will always be a need for person to person tracing because of the conversations technology cannot replace she says it is a tool that can mean more information faster.
A priority when the number of cases are as high as they are.
"The idea is we are trying to understand who is sick as early as we can," Miller said.
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