Maricopa County Public Health Director: COVID-19 Contact Tracing 'Doesn’t Make Any Sense' Now
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends an intensive contact tracing program as part of a plan to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in communities. Contact tracers would inform people who may have been exposed to the disease to self quarantine and seek treatment.
Maricopa County’s public health director Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine says it can be difficult — if not impossible — to accurately determine where an individual who tests positive for COVID-19 contracted the disease, and that public health efforts should be spent elsewhere.
"By the time someone gets tested and is reported to public health, that person has already been exposing other people for a week or more," Sunenshine said. “By spending time going backward to try and figure all the places they’ve been, to figure out the one place they may have gotten it, doesn’t make any sense when we know there’s COVID-19 all over the community."
The most effective way to curb the spread of the disease, she says, is still wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away from others.
