If you have been around someone who tests positive for COVID-19, you should expect to get a call from a contact tracer. Here's what to expect if you get one of these calls.
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation is announcing new COVID-19 cases almost every day. If you test positive, you can expect to receive a call from YKHC as soon as it gets your results. A medical provider will give you the news, answer your questions, and then they’ll arrange a call between you and a contact tracer.
“So there’s a couple different steps to contact tracing,” explained Brian Lefferts, YKHC Director of Environmental Health and Engineering. He leads the contact tracing team at YKHC. "That interview," Lefferts said, "can take up to an hour to complete."
The tracer will ask about any health conditions you might have that would put you at a higher risk for complications with COVID-19. They’ll ask about travel history, and they’ll ask you to try to remember everyone you’ve been around during the time when you might have been infectious.
There are two types of contacts. Close contacts are anyone who has been within 6 feet or less of someone for more than 15 minutes, according for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All other contacts are “general population contacts."
“And those are anyone who may have been in contact with the individual who tested positive during their infectious period, but not to the level that is considered a close contact,” Lefferts said.
For close contacts, YKHC will ask for the date you were in contact, and for how long. They’ll also request a phone number for the contact. If you don’t have a phone number, YKHC will likely be able to find it in their medical records. Then YKHC will call all those close contacts.
Here’s what happens if you get one of those calls. First off, many members of the team are working from home and might be calling from their personal cell phones. If you want to verify that you are talking to a YKHC employee, you’ll be given another number to call, and you can ask to receive a YKHC e-mail. The contact tracer who called will let you know that you were in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, but not who that contact was.
“We understand that this is really frustrating for people to not know who they were in contact with that recently tested positive for COVID," Lefferts said, "but as a health corporation, health information privacy rights have to be followed.”
The tracer can tell you when you may have been exposed and will ask you to quarantine for 14 days from that time. For example, if you were in contact on Oct. 1, you’d be asked to quarantine until Oct. 14. All members of your household will also be asked to quarantine for those 14 days, unless you’re able to isolate yourself from them. That means using a separate bedroom and bathroom and keeping apart. The contact tracer will then schedule an appointment for you to get tested for COVID-19. That test should occur five to eight days after exposure.
“It can take that amount of time, on average, for your body to begin to shed enough virus to where it would get picked up on a follow-up test,” Lefferts said.
Household members are not recommended to get tested, but if they choose to, they can. If you want, YKHC can email you general medical material about COVID-19 and a medical work excuse to send to your employer. Critical infrastructure employers should already have plans on file with the State of Alaska on how to structure their employees’ quarantine. Contact tracers will make regular calls to people in quarantine until their quarantine ends.
YKHC Vice President of Communications Tiffany Zulkosky said that contact tracers are working overtime, seven days per week, but can only do so much.
“Our response is only a piece of the puzzle in COVID-19 prevention. It really is everyone’s responsibility to stop this virus from spreading,” Zulkosky said.
As of Sept. 29, the region had 13 active COVID-19 cases and was monitoring 250 close contacts. If each of those contacts developed COVID-19 symptoms, Zulkosky said, it would overwhelm the regional health care system.
To prevent that, YKHC asks everyone to wear masks in public, wash their hands, keep social circles small, maintain physical distance from others outside your household, get tested for COVID-19 after out of region travel, and quarantine after travel or after close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19.
If you are interested in contact tracing, YKHC is hiring. You can apply for a contact tracing position on their website.
