DC’s battle to wrangle COVID-19 community spread will soon include home visits
WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - On Monday, D.C. Chief Health Officer Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt announced a Contact Trace Force will launch next week with goal of targeting those who have not answered contact tracing interviews and those who are in the highest risk categories.
A “high percentage” of people are giving correct information for contact tracing, Nesbitt added.
D.C. leaders announced 78 new positive COVID-19 cases in the District, bringing the total number of cases to 11,339 on July 20.
RELATED: Mouth lesions may be a new coronavirus symptom, study suggests
However, a number that is concerning is a metric officials will be sharing public in a new graph from here on out: the percentage of positive cases from quarantine contact.
Right now, health officials say fewer than three percent of the population testing positive can be traced back to someone else with coronavirus.
A new graphic released, which will now be available with D.C.’s COVID19 data site, presents this metric in a bar graph.
Dr. Nesbitt explained that the light gray bar shows the number of positive COVID-19 cases recorded that day. The dark gray bar shows the number of positive cases that day, that came from quarantine contacts -- meaning contact tracers have already identified the new case as someone who previously came in contact with a positive COVID-19 patient.
Download the FOX 5 DC News App for Local Breaking News and Weather
If the dark gray and light gray are at the same level, that’s good, Nesbitt explained. We’re told that means containment: the city knows who is testing positive and where the exposure originated from.
Ideally, D.C. leaders want that metric to be at 60%. On July 16, last Thursday, that metric was 2.8%. The highest it’s been since mid-June, appears to be 4% according to the bar graph.
When asked what is being done to reach 60%, Dr. Nesbitt again reiterated warnings from the D.C. Health Department and Mayor Muriel Bowser on limiting or being judicious with your activity.
“I think people have gotten very relaxed around those types of recommendations and are almost now making a run every day and are – ‘I need one item’ and will go to the grocery store. We still need people to be judicious about choosing their activates and being in that kind of posture,” said Dr. Nesbitt, recalling when officials advised people to only grocery shop once every two weeks – and people followed.
“D.C. Health’s strategies to control the spread of COVID-19 evolve in response to our local context while remaining rooted in best practices of disease investigations. As we have proceeded through phased reopening, we expanded contact tracing and achieved success in timely contact attempts. We are adding complementary tools, such as home visits, to build on that success and to help complete interviews with cases and contacts and connect them to the services they need to safely isolate or quarantine,” said a D.C. Health Department Spokesperson when asked why the city is launching home visits now, some six months into the pandemic.
FOX 5 was told the city now has around 300 contact tracers.
The Contact Trace Force, with in-person visits, will also connect those interviewees with any needed services.
With cases rising across the country, it was asked whether D.C. is considering bringing back certain COVID-19 restrictions. It’s not off the table, D.C. leaders noted.