The New Jersey Department of Health https://www.nj.gov/health has unveiled an online Contact Tracing Dashboard highlighting the state’s numbers of people infected with COVID-19 by using contact tracing efforts throughout the state.
The dashboard provides information on the percentage of cases successfully interviewed who provide contacts, contacts notifications, and more. According to current data, 61 percent of cases were successfully followed up, and nearly half of all contacts were notified of their exposure.
The state working with the Rutgers School of Public Health https://sph.rutgers.edu and Public Consulting Group https://publicconsultinggroup.com, is continuing to build a strong, quality contact tracing program. To date, 1,3444 contact tracers are in the field. This includes existing local health department staff and Rutgers trained contact tracers that have been deployed by the N.J Department of Health.
As the dashboard shows, the biggest reason why contact tracers have been unable to follow up on cases is because people have not answered the call plus 45 percent of people who tested positive decline to share information on their close contacts.
The N.J Department of Health began a multi-media multilingual statewide public awareness campaign to encourage people to get tested and to increase the public’s knowledge of what contact tracing is, plus the role contact tracing can play in preventing spread of the disease.
Go to https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/topics/covid2019_dashboard.shtml to view the Dashboard.