How cooperative are Whatcom County residents being with COVID contact tracing?
For the most part, Whatcom County residents have been cooperative and have answered questions for COVID-19 contact tracers.
How forthcoming they are about everybody they’ve been in contact with? Well, that’s difficult to know for sure, Whatcom County Health Department Communicable Disease and Epidemiology Manager Cindy Hollinsworth told The Bellingham Herald.
“It’s really hard to quantify,” Hollinsworth said in a phone interview. “A lot of people report just one or two contacts. That could be true, and we have to accept what individuals say as fact, but our investigators do get a sense that most people have been in contact with more people they are not sharing.”
The health department has previously referred to contact tracing as being similar to disease detective work, identifying people who have come in contact with confirmed cases of COVID-19 and may have contracted the disease so they can isolate or quarantine themselves.
“Extensive disease investigations will allow us to dial back social distancing measures and help limit the virus from making a comeback,” the health department said.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, this practice has, for decades, been common for public health officials working to slow the spread of an infectious disease — measles or sexually transmitted diseases, for example — or prevent an outbreak.
Hollinsworth said coronavirus contact tracing began in Whatcom County as soon as the first case of the respiratory illness was confirmed on March 10. As of June 7, Hollinsworth said Whatcom contact tracers had conducted 845 interviews, and of those, 49 — or approximately 6% — became confirmed COVID-19 cases.
“This is one of the tools we use,” Hollinsworth said. “Everybody wants the same thing — we want to control COVID and allow our economy to open and schools to resume and to do all those things in life that are so important to us. If we can work collaboratively with individuals, we’ll go a lot further as far as disease control. We’re asking people to help us help our community.”
Other areas of the state have reported difficulties in contact tracing among young adults — a segment of the community where recent COVID-19 transmission has been highest. In a KING-5.com story July 28, health officials in Kitsap and Pierce counties said contact tracers have found reaching young adults more difficult than other age groups because they either don’t answer calls from numbers they don’t recognize or don’t return messages.
Hollinsworth said Whatcom County contact tracers have not had any quantifiable difficulties contact any particular age group, as “the majority of people do cooperate.”
But sometimes residents of all ages do not return calls or only divulge one or two potential contacts, though more are suspected, investigators have reported to Hollinsworth.
“We’ve found there is a reluctance to share more than a handful of contacts, even when we get a sense there are more,” Hollinsworth said.
“We’ve made so much of an effort to tell people to limit their contacts to no more than five people, I think there is a bit of shame for violating that guidance. I think it makes people less likely to share everyone they are around because they don’t want to say they had contact with more than five people or were at a large social gathering.”
Hollinsworth said she’s even seen that among her own family members when she sees social media photos from large events.
The most skilled contact tracing investigators have learned to circle back around to get as much information as possible during interviews, Hollinsworth said.
Other hurdles Whatcom investigators have reported include language barriers, literacy levels and trust of investigators. But Hollinsworth said the health department is working to establish multi-lingual investigators, training staff who do speak other languages how to become contact tracers and working with its community partners to help bridge any gaps.
In addition, the health department issued a warning on July 22 that it has received reports of residents being targeted by scammers posing as health department employees conducting COVID-19 contact investigations. It warned that contact tracers will only ask for names, birth dates, phone numbers and addresses.
According to the health department website, legitimate contact tracers will not ask:
▪ For any financial information.
▪ For any personal information beyond name, address, phone number and date of birth.
▪ About your immigration status.
▪ For your Social Security number.
▪ For any fees or payment associated with contract tracing.
The Federal Trade Commission re-emphasized those points and added that it is important not to download anything sent from a contact tracer in an email or text. Real contact tracers will only send text messages saying that they will be calling you and will never ask you to click on any links or download anything.
On July 30, Gov. Jay Inslee announced a new proclamation he said will exempt from public disclosure the names, birth dates, phone numbers and addresses collected by investigators.
Hollinsworth said Whatcom County was already keeping that data separate from records that must be disclosed, and the governor’s order just reinforced what they were already doing and reiterated the importance of the work Whatcom contact tracers are doing.
“As community transmission has increased, we’re all at increased risk for exposure in our lives,” Hollinsworth said. “COVID has not gone away, so it is important that we all continue to remain vigilant.”
