Contact tracing is and has been part of the backbone of our health response to New Zealand’s two Covid-19 community outbreaks.
Identifying and contacting those who have been in close or casual contact with a known positive case has been vital to eliminating the first outbreak of the virus and containing the second.
Earlier this year, the Auckland Regional Public Health Service filmed a behind the scenes video showing how their team worked during the first wave of Covid-19 in the community.
In the video, clinical director of Auckland Regional Public Health Service Dr Julia Peters explains what happens when a regional public health service is notified of a positive Covid-19 case.
“Under the law, we are notified of any positive Covid-19 results,” says Peters.
“As soon as we get that, that patient is assigned to one of our case and contact management teams.”
That person is then called by the public health service and a relationship is established with them.
From there, whoever is assigned to contacting the patient will arrange a time to interview them.
In that interview, public health staff will identify who that person has been in close contact with and then begin searching for those contacts.
“[We inform] them that they are close contact of someone with Covid-19,” Peters says.
Both the Covid-19 patient and their close contacts need to be in full isolation or self-isolation.
“Then we have to ring them everyday to check on their health.”
This process of tracing all close contacts was made easier under Alert Level 4 lockdown early this year, says Peters.
However, with cases in rest homes resulting in countless contacts that had to be tracked and traced, this process became much more complex.
“Contact tracing is always challenging,” says Peters.
Watch the full behind the scenes look at contact tracing above.
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