Wauwatosa Health Department Announces Changes To Contact Tracing Process

Press release from the City of Wauwatosa:

October 20, 2020

As is happening across Wisconsin, Wauwatosa has seen an exponential growth in the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19. In the past month, 411 new cases of COVID-19 were reported, compared with 183 cases in the previous month. View a dashboard with Wauwatosa data related to COVID-19.

This recent surge in cases has exceeded the capacity of many local health departments in Wisconsin. We are no exception. We currently need to prioritize activities that will best limit the spread of COVID-19 in our community. This will allow us to focus on people who are high risk of contracting or spreading the virus. Even with increases to staff and state contact tracing teams, the number of people that need to be contacted has exceeded Wauwatosa Health Department’s capacity.

The pandemic has reached a level in Wauwatosa that is forcing us to reevaluate where to focus our efforts. While we are not stopping contact tracing, we are implementing crisis standards of practice for COVID-19 Contact Tracing as suggested by Ryan Westergaard, Chief Medical Officer and State Epidemiologist for Communicable Diseases in his memo dated September 15. These changes are listed below.

Schools:

• School nurses/administration will be responsible for identifying and notifying all close contacts exposed in the school (including classrooms, recess, extracurriculars, sports, etc.) and provide instructions for quarantine.
• All questions from families and faculty/staff will be handled by the school nurses. The school nurses will reach out to the Wauwatosa Health Department with any questions they are unable to answer.
• We will continue to provide return to work/school letters, as needed.

Team Sports and Youth Activities:

• We will direct COVID-19 positive individuals to notify their coaches/organization leaders of their status and potential exposures on the team.
• Team Sports and Youth Activities not sponsored by the school district will be responsible for identifying and notifying participants of exposure and instructions for quarantine if they are a close contact to a confirmed case.
• These organizations may reach out to us with any questions, but we will not contact them with every team or youth activity exposure.

Workplaces:

• We will direct COVID-19 positive individuals to notify their employer of their status and potential exposures in the workplace.
• Businesses will be responsible for identifying and notifying employees of exposure and instructions for quarantine if they are a close contact to a confirmed case.
• Businesses can reach out to us with any questions, but we will not contact them with a facility exposure.

Household:

• We will direct COVID-19 positive individuals to notify their household contacts (family members and roommates) of their exposure.
• We will provide positive individuals with quarantine information that they can pass along to their household contacts.

All other contact tracing efforts will remain the same at this time. For example, we will continue to follow up on all confirmed cases of COVID-19 at healthcare, long-term, and assisted living facilities. All Wauwatosa Health Department contact tracing efforts including those listed here are subject to change as the pandemic progresses.

This press release was produced by the City of Wauwatosa. The views expressed here are the author’s own.