State Approaches to Contact Tracing during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In May, the state selected PRC, a health care research company based in Omaha, to partner with for contact tracing. The state is also working with Nelnet and North End Teleservices to staff contact tracing positions.

In New York City, the city’s public hospital system will lead tracing work.

Tulsa and Oklahoma Counties operate independent tracing operations.

The University of South Dakota’s Community Action Response Epidemiology (CARE) team partnered with the state to provide contact tracing and health promotion for the university and for the state’s tribal communities.

Contact tracers refer people to Alabama Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, which supports and helps people who are self-isolating. This organization offers cooperation, coordination, communication, and collaboration among voluntary organizations active in disaster relief, though it is not a service delivery organization.

The state recommends that schools use seating charts in classrooms and on school buses to assist with contact tracing.  If a student or staff member tests positive, the nurse will use these seating charts to identify close contacts and complete the school contact tracing log. Doctors, school nurses, and principals must report positive cases to the state within four hours for contact tracing.

Contact tracers provide instruction, education, and support to ensure close contacts do not infect others if they become ill themselves.

The state recommends contact tracers work with employers if a person with COVID-19 attended work while infectious but cannot remember who they came into close contact with.

As of November, the state health department also asked people who test positive to call their own close contacts as soon as possible and asked all Alaskans to help by keeping their social circles small and keeping track of all contacts.

With a bolstered workforce and decining cases, Alaska’s contact tracing system has rebounded as of January 2021. It now takes about three days between when people are tested to when they receive a call from a contact tracer.

The state recommends congregate settings maintain visitor logs to aid with contact tracing efforts.

In Maricopa County, older adults  who test positive and anyone living in a communal setting receive a phone call from a live contact tracer, and new cases among younger, lower-risk people are contacted via text message.

Among the White Mountain Apache tribe in Arizona, contact tracing includes home visits.

As of December, the Pima County health department requires business and government entities to report any positive cases in the workplace within 48 hours of symptom onset or the day they were tested. It also requires the business or government entity to comply with all case investigation and tracing efforts, including providing any information requested by the health department. The county is also attempting in-person contact tracing if it cannot reach cases by phone, text, or email.

Contact tracers provide information to help people safely quarantine, find alternate arrangements as necessary, and help them get tested, if recommended. Contact tracers also connect people with services available through the Arkansas Department of Health, such as food delivery or alternate housing.

Contact tracers refer people to their local public health departments for more information about available resources, such as testing, medical care, housing, or other resources.

Contact tracers tell people how to get tested, how to quarantine, and link them to a COVID-19 navigator for support services access such as food, lodging, and financial help.

The state uses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations and definitions for contact tracing and identifying cases.

Connecticut has implemented a statewide software system called ContaCT for monitoring test results and positive cases. The ContaCT platform will identify and refer people who need support at initiation and throughout self-isolation or self-quarantine. Case workers will support people in self-isolation or self-quarantine by connecting them with state, local, and regional resources as necessary, such as food and housing.

In September, the state established a rapid response team to address outbreaks and implement best practices in nursing homes and assisted living facilities as needed.

County health departments or the Connecticut COVID Tracing Systems typically contact patients who test positive within 24 hours of their result, but patients are encouraged to reach out on their own if they do not hear back within that time frame.

The contact tracing mailer outlines how a positive case should talk to their close contacts, but no other resource sharing is specified.

In August, contact tracing began to include home visits for individuals who did not complete contact tracing interviews or could not be reached by contact tracers.

Positive cases or confirmed contacts who need extra support to self-quarantine (that is, grocery delivery or alternative housing) will be referred to a network of local community health workers coordinated by Healthy Communities Delaware. In June, state health department employees started going out into the community in field teams to reach those with no phone number listed.

The state’s COVID-19 data dashboard presents contact tracing statistics since June 27.

The state requires that contact tracers call grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, and other businesses to inform them if someone who tested positive recently visited the establishment.

If a positive case or a symptomatic contact of a positive case is identified in a school setting, a case investigator will work with the school to conduct contact tracing. The case investigator will notify schools to ensure that positive cases and contacts do not return to school until after their isolation or quarantine period is over.

Contact tracers assess people’s needs and connect them with a care resources coordinator to get them support to help with quarantining.

The state created a Health Liaison position at the Department of Education to work with the Department of Health on school health issues.  This role will include ensuring efficient and expedited testing, contact tracing, data collection, reporting, and supports for COVID-19 in school settings. The state recommends that schools participate in contact tracing efforts.

Two school districts created their own contact tracing teams. When a student tests positive in these districts, the teams check seating charts, work with teachers, and watch school bus footage to identify close contacts. The districts then provide this information to the state at the end of the day to complete contact tracing.

In July, the state released specific contact tracing guidance for positive cases and close contacts at schools and workplaces.

In August, the state announced that social workers, rather than contact tracers, would offer education and resources to those required to isolate or quarantine. The state was prioritizing contact tracing for people in high-risk occupations, living in high-risk settings, or with high-risk factors.

Since November, three state health districts have modified their contact tracing efforts because of a surge in COVID-19 cases. Contact tracers will still call and send letters to people who have tested positive, but they will ask people with positive cases to notify their own contacts. Contact tracers also prioritize outreach by age and risk.

Contact tracers connect people to a case investigator or support services as needed, such as getting them food, medications, and services.

Contact tracers make calls in English and Spanish.

The state has guidance for several settings, including workplaces, schools, places of worship, and long-term care facilities with specific contact tracing steps if an individual tests positive or has been in close contact with a confirmed case.

Cases who report  living or working in a congregate setting, are flagged to the local health department, which then investigates to determine whether there is an outbreak at the facility.

In August, the state launched a COVID-19 hotline for schools, to  provide information and access to contact tracing toolkits.

In December, Indiana’s 1,000 state-level contact tracers  changed to a shorter script notifying residents about a positive COVID-19 test result and directing them to quarantine guidelines and assistance programs.

Contact tracers also no longer collect detailed information on COVID-19 symptoms among “close contacts” of infected individuals, instead directing people to online resources.

State contact tracers are advising individuals infected with COVID-19 to separately reach out to their close contacts and direct them to the resources on the coronavirus.in.gov website, because they’re more likely to respond to a known telephone number or text message from a friend.

As of February, the state will no longer require quarantine or contact tracing for K-12 classroom exposures if the students and teachers remain at least three feet apart and are always wearing masks.

Contact tracers offer to set up services, such as grocery deliveries, and share advice on how to safely social distance or quarantine.

As of February 2021, the Iowa Department of Public Health conducts contact tracing for more than two-thirds of Iowa’s counties. The state will not contact schools or employers about positive cases, though localities that conduct their own contact tracing may still do this.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment advises prisons to do initial and periodic screening of inmates and to screen staff and visitors and requests all cases be reported immediately to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Epidemiology Hotline, which is monitored 24/7.

Contact investigators will refer people who need additional resources, such as groceries, to social support coordinators.

The state recommends contact tracers notify any restaurant or retail business if someone diagnosed with COVID-19 reports they visited that restaurant or retail business in the 14 days since being diagnosed and to provide additional guidance and next steps.

As of November, the city of Louisville halted active contact tracing given the surge in cases statewide.

Contact tracers try to link positive cases, as well as close contacts, to important health and social services needed while they are required to stay at home. For example, the state hired Volunteers of America to help coordinate needs assessment teams in various regions across the state, which would link people to needed services in their communities.

In response to recently rising case rates, the state is prioritizing recent cases as well as those that appear in areas of the state that are more vulnerable. Congregate living facilities also perform their own contact tracing.

The Louisiana Department of Health’s Contact Tracing program is using SMS text messaging to provide COVID-19-positive individuals, their contacts, and travelers to Louisiana with advice and support regarding infection, isolation and quarantine, how to protect their own health and that of others, and assistance in meeting basic needs for food, shelter and medical assistance while quarantined.

The contact tracers also collect personal information from individuals through SMS text messaging about their COVID-19 symptoms, health, isolation and quarantine plans.

Anyone within six feet of a person with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes is considered a contact. State contact tracers will connect people who need to isolate or quarantine to social support services, such as delivered meals, prescriptions, and behavioral health counseling.

The state asks businesses that reopen to maintain contact information for clients and customers and the staff in case a customer or client tests positive for the virus.

In September 2020, the state allocated $1 million to 24 organizations under the COVID-19 Health Equity Improvement Initiative to support culturally tailored prevention, education, and social support activities. In addition, the state partners with Community Action Program agencies to assist those who need to quarantine or isolate; Wabanaki Public Health to support Maine Tribal members with COVID-19; and Catholic Charities of Maine to provide supports for racial and ethnic minorities and assist in contact tracing efforts throughout the state.

In November, the state announced that in response to rising cases it would no longer investigate symptomatic close contacts as probable cases. Instead, the state would only investigate those with a positive lab result.

In December, the state announced that it would prioritize contact tracing only for people who are high-risk  (people who are age 18 and younger, age 65 and older, hospitalized, minorities, disabled, health care workers, first responders, or employees in congregate settings) and ask low-risk individuals to perform their own contact tracing.

The state’s covidLINK dashboard presents contact tracing statistics.

Local boards and the Community Tracing Collaborative help arrange for medical and quarantine support for positive cases. Contacts receive testing and quarantine support (through care resource coordinators) for themselves and their households, if applicable, and general information as needed.

Contact tracers investigating COVID-19 cases are responsible for indicating when people who test positive can return to work. Local boards of health, with assistance from epidemiologists, conduct extensive investigations and contact tracing if clusters of cases emerge in long-term care facilities and nursing homes.

As numbers rise, in early December, the Michigan Department Health and Human Services asked state employees in other departments to work as contact tracers for three-month stints. Employees who volunteer must take a seven-hour training from Johns Hopkins University and also learn the state’s system.

In November, in response to rising case rates, the state issued guidance to local health departments to prioritize contact tracing for confirmed cases over probable cases, workers in schools and health care facilities, and people with higher mortality and hospitalizations. The state also issued an order requiring restaurants or bars to ask patrons for their name and phone number , but it does not require the patron to comply.

In August, the state released a COVID-19 toolkit with contact tracing guidelines for shelters and drop-in centers.

In September, the state released contact tracing guidelines for employers.

In November, the state launched a texting program to assist with contact tracing. All people who test positive will receive an automated text with a phone number that the contact tracer will be calling from.

The state considers long-term care facilities to be high-risk locations. It will investigate residents, staff, and close contacts of infected people for possible exposure.

Three school districts are conducting their own contact tracing when a positive case is identified at the schools. In one district, parents are alerted by phone and letter if a student might have been in contact with a person with COVID-19. The second school district sends an alert to all families and notifies the local newspaper when a case is identified. The third school district notifies parents in case of a possible infection but does not do a districtwide announcement.

The state recommends that individuals keep track of their contacts to assist in the contact tracing process using a downloadable contact tracing worksheet.

In December, multiple counties asked residents who tested positive to notify their own close contacts. Other counties began prioritizing contact tracing for cases as most risk of spreading, or prioritizing more recent positive tests, meaning some residents would not get a call at all and instead receive an information packet in the mail.

The state published new guidance for schools in late November to provide local public health agencies (LPHAs) guidance on how to contact trace based on the seven-day case rate and require them to report positive tests from students to the state.

The state recommends that businesses have policies and procedures for workforce contact tracing if an employee tests positive. The state links to Ford’s Return to Work Playbook as a resource to provide an overview of contact tracing.

In January 2021, the state legislature began contracting with Lewis and Clack counties to provide a contact tracer solely dedicated to case investigation among members of the legislature.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services recommends  contact tracers send a thermometer to people who have tested positive and their close contacts, inquire about wraparound services, link to clinical services, and provide advice and instructions on how to quarantine.

Contact tracers hand off cases that involve exposure in a congregate setting for a higher-level investigation given the high risk.

In November, the Douglas County Health Department released a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) contact tracing packet to the public.

In December 2020, contact tracers started texting individuals before calling to help them make contact. The state also resumed calling close contacts of positive cases in December.

In response to increased case counts, in December, the state made new recommendations that contact tracers more narrowly focus their efforts to high-risk populations.

The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services also sent a memo to local health authorities regarding contact tracing. Case investigators will limit the amount of information they collect from cases, shortening the survey time from 30 minutes to 15 minutes. The memo encourages case investigators to notify infected residents of their positive lab result within 24 hours, and then prioritize those who have tested positive within the last six days. The state is also working on an online questionnaire for positive individuals to complete on their own to save time.

The Department of Health and Human Services (NHDHHS) recommends long-term care facility staff conduct enhanced surveillance in the event that a resident tests positive. In the event of an outbreak, the facility will coordinate with the NHDHHS Cluster investigation team.

People dining in restaurants are required to provide their name and phone number for contact tracing purposes

In January 2021, the state issued guidance on contact tracing for schools.

Anyone within six feet of a person with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes starting two days before symptoms emerged is considered a contact.

Contact tracers connect those who need help with additional support, including securing living situations for those who cannot safely quarantine at home.

Beginning October 2020, restaurants are required to keep logs of at least 21 calendar days of customers for contact tracing purposes.

As of  November 2020, businesses can participate in surveillance testing and contact tracing to avoid a 14-day rapid response closure. Employers will select a COVID-19 coordinator responsible for working with the state’s Department of Health on contact tracing efforts in the workplace upon a confirmed COVID-19 case. Grocery stores and other essential businesses may avoid mandatory closures triggered by surges among employees if they agree to regularly test employees and help with state contact tracing efforts.

Contact tracers connect people with supports and offer information about how to keep their family safe while staying at home.

In response to increased case counts in January, local health departments are prioritizing cases using a last-in first-out approach so that newest cases are interviewed first. They are also prioritizing contacts linked to congregate living setting, health care settings, and those that are associated with outbreaks and clusters.

The Ohio Department of Health is updating its system to allow local health departments to enter information about where an infected person was in contact with people prior to their positive test.

The state is adopting a “backward” contact tracing approach, in an attempt to identify the source of each case instead of only identifying close contacts to prevent future spread.

Contact tracers provide education and information to individuals explaining how to separate themselves from others and connect them to services they might need. Potentially exposed individuals are asked to self-isolate and asked what services they might need.

In December 2020, the state was advising most individuals who test positive to notify their own close contacts.

Contact tracers connect people with case managers who offer supports to make sure that people who must isolate or quarantine have access to needed services, such as food, shelter, mental health care, and more. The state also provides a resource packet that includes a thermometer.

The state recommends testing all asymptomatic employees and residents in group-living situations in which someone is suspected to have COVID-19. Long-term care, assisted living, and residential care facilities are expected to develop and implement plans for ongoing monitoring, including testing residents and staffs at least once a month.

In some counties, including Multnomah, new tracing protocols are designed so that contacts of positive cases may only know of their potential exposure if informed by the positive case themselves.

Community health nurses provide information describing how to isolate, asymptomatic transmission, and how to  monitor symptoms. Contact tracers notify individuals who may have been exposed in congregate settings, and   follow up with the respective facilities where congregation took place. Contact tracers are also playing a large role in educating individuals.

The state has prioritized contact tracing to populations considered  most vulnerable and cases that could lead to greater community spread.

In December 2020, the state started a new digital contact tracing system called Connect and Protect that directs individuals between ages 19 and 64 who test positive to fill out an online contact tracing questionnaire.

Since January 2021, contact tracing at long-term care facilities, which was previously conducted by a health systems partnership called the Regional Response Health Collaborative (RRHC) Program, has been conducted by individual county health departments.

As of January 2021, the Rhode Island Department of Health launched a text-based contact tracing system enabling residents to fill out an online form, providing contact information for close contacts. The system will automatically text the list of people, informing them they must self-quarantine. The system is not designed to replace human contact tracers but to supplement the contact tracing work.

Contact tracers refer positive cases and contacts to supportive services, including medical and social services.

As of January 2021, in response to increased case counts, the Department of Health and Environmental Control has transitioned from a “containment” to a “mitigation” approach. Contact tracers will now focus exclusively on household contacts exposed to the virus in the past six days and people located in places where a spread has been possible.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) recommends that any residents in residential treatment facilities for children and adolescents who were recently cared for by a staff member who tested positive be restricted to their rooms and monitored for symptoms. SCDHEC recommends that adult day care facilities keep logs of names and contact information for all staff, participants, visitors, and vendors in case the DHEC needs to contact them.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections (DEC) conducts contact tracing if an inmate or staff tests positive in a correctional facility. The DEC built an app to assist with tracking infections among prison staff.

Some school districts have worked with the state to develop a letter to alert parents that their children might have been exposed to a positive case.

The Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) recommends employers identify someone whom employees can notify if they test positive for COVID-19. This point of contact can then work with TDH to investigate the case, including identifying and notifying other staff who might be at risk. TDH also provides recommendations for contact tracing to staff members, clients, and close contacts in congregate settings, such as shelters, group care homes, and residential facilities. Contact tracing in these settings should include identifying roommates, people who shared bathrooms, and whether staff wore appropriate personal protective equipment.

It is the local public health department’s responsibility to perform contact tracing in schools and universities. When a school is notified of a confirmed case, it should contact the local health department to provide contact information and other details about the case. The local health department then recommends ways to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the school.

In February 2021, Shelby County Health Department launched case notification through text messaging. Its staff texts anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 with a link to an online case investigation/contact tracing questionnaire.

The state conducts initial contact tracing outreach via manual calls to positive cases, presumptive positive cases, and their contacts. Contact tracers help link people with supports, such as how to get food during self-isolation.

The state requires schools to notify their local health department and all teachers, staff, and students’ families if a positive case has been in a school. Schools must also submit an online form alerting the state of the cases, which will be posted publicly on the state website. Two of the state’s largest school districts, however, said they will only notify families of students who were close contacts because this policy is not a legally binding  requirement.

As of December 2020, some health departments were prioritizing positive cases and asking those individuals to reach out to their contacts and ask them to quarantine and be tested.

In December 2020, the state began sending automated text messages and emails to positive cases and contacts of positive cases who do not answer an initial phone call from contact tracers. The text message or email includes a link to a secure form where the person can provide contact tracing information electronically.

If an employee tests positive, the state will follow up with the business to offer resources and help identify other employees who might have encountered the person who tested positive.

Each school will designate a point of contact to work with the health department on contact tracing.

Anyone within six feet of a person with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes is considered a contact. The state also asks for contacts starting 14 days before someone began showing symptoms.

Starting in December 2020, contacts may receive a text message prior to receiving a call.

The state relies on a rapid response team, made up of Health Department staff and state partners, to conduct contact tracing in long-term care and group living settings if a case of COVID-19 is found.

If a positive case was at a school during his/her infectious period, the state will support schools with contact tracing. School administrators will be asked to communicate with teachers, staff, and families to provide quarantine guidance. The state also posts a list of confirmed school-based cases and transmissions on a weekly basis.

In November, the state began requiring restaurants and businesses who host non-essential activities to maintain a 30-day log of employee and guest names and contact information for contact tracing. The state requires all residents to comply with these contact tracing requests.

In January 2021, the state began notifying positive cases via a series of automated text messages. The texts will include a link to the new COVIDWISE Verification Code Portal to allow those who have tested positive to submit their results to the COVIDWISE app for exposure notification. The messages will be available in English or Spanish.

The state conducts symptom monitoring through text or email using Sara Alert. The contact tracer will provide education, information, and support to help those who might have been exposed.

Multiple universities have taken on active roles in contact tracing for their respective campuses. The University of Virginia partnered with its local health district to fund seven new positions for contact tracing on campus, Virginia Commonwealth University has hired 13 contact tracers, and Virginia Tech has implemented a Case Management Team to assist with contact tracing and coordinating quarantining  and isolation on campus.

In long-term care facilities, residents who were cared for by staff who were symptomatic and tested positive will undergo careful monitoring and have limited exposure to others. Roommates of residents who test positive will also have limited exposure to others. In correctional facilities, contacts of those who test positive will be quarantined for 14 days with twice-daily symptom and temperature checks.

If a school or child care facility is operating in person, the state requires school and child care personnel to participate in contact tracing investigations. Staff at these facilities will provide detailed information to state contact tracers, such as who was in certain areas of the facility at a given time and contact information for children or staff associated with the facility. In K–12 schools, contact tracing includes working with school staff to obtain class schedules, seating charts, and other information.

Contact tracers inform people of prevention measures to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Anyone who had direct physical contact with the person, was within six feet of the person for more than 15 minutes, had contact with the person’s respiratory secretions, or stayed overnight for at least one night in a household with the person who tested positive for COVID-19 is considered a contact.

Contact tracers offer recommendations for quarantining and sign people up for self-monitoring. They can also connect people with isolation facilities.

Restaurants and bars must maintain logs of employees’ working hours by date and time to help with contact tracing when needed. Childcare centers that have either a staff member or a child test positive will be immediately shut down until contact tracing can be implemented.

As of November 2020, public health officials will only contact known cases of COVID-19. This approach is supported by the Wyoming Technology Coronavirus Coalition’s Contact Tracing at Home initiative.

In December 2020, Anchorage began requiring establishments serving the public to keep customer or client contact information in case it was needed for contact tracing. Businesses are required to communicate to employees and the health department any known COVID-19 exposures.

With a bolstered workforce and reducing cases, Alaska’s contact tracing system has rebounded as of January 2021. It now takes about three days between when individuals are tested and they receive a call from a contact tracer.

Contact tracers also no longer collect detailed information on COVID-19 symptoms among “close contacts” of infected individuals, instead directing people to online resources.

State contact tracers are advising individuals infected with COVID-19 to separately  reach out to their close contacts and direct them to the resources on the coronavirus.in.gov website, because they’re more likely to respond to a known telephone number or text message from a friend.

In January, the state announced it would redirect some contact tracing staff to the vaccination effort, and will text non-household contacts of positive cases rather than calling them.

As of November, the city of Louisville halted active contact tracing given the surge in cases statewide.

The state also announced in November that in response to rising case rates, it would no longer investigate symptomatic close contacts as probable cases. Instead, the state would only investigate those with a positive lab result.

Because of the rapid uptick in cases, the state will also ask low-risk people to perform their own contact tracing. In addition, the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make only one contact with an infected individual (instead of checking in with them periodically) to provide guidance.

In November, in response to rising case rates, the state issued guidance to local health departments to prioritize contact tracing for confirmed cases over probable cases,  workers in schools and health care facilities, and people with higher mortality and hospitalizations. The state also issued an order requiring restaurants or bars to ask patrons for their name and phone number , but it does not require the patron to comply.

The state published new guidance for schools in late November to provide local public health agencies (LPHAs) guidance on how to contact trace based on the seven-day case rate and require LPHAs to report any positive tests from students to the state.

In December 2020, the state started a new digital contact tracing system called Connect and Protect that directs individuals between ages 19 and 64 who test positive to fill out an online contact tracing questionnaire.

In addition to health department staff, partners contributing staff include the Anchorage Health Department, school districts, nonprofits, tribal health organizations, a hospital, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Arctic Investigations Program,  the Alaska National Guard, the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Center for Rural Health and Workforce, and AM Trace, a public health firm. A partnership with the University of Alaska Anchorage’s College of Health added training capacity, and new partnerships with community health centers and a workforce and technology company, Rose International, Inc. will expand the contact tracing workforce.

The state is training state employees and working with statewide university partners to use faculty, staff, and students in public health, medicine, nursing, and social work programs.  The state is also partnering with the federal CDC Foundation for recruiting and

assigning new employees to staff up to 40 teams of public health investigators, which can be deployed statewide.

In mid-June, the governor authorized the National Guard to help with contact tracing efforts.

In July, Pima County began contracting with a private company, Maximus Health Services, to hire at least 150 contact tracers.

Last July, the state authorized medical and public health schools at the University of Arkansas to conduct contact tracing for public and private colleges and universities in Arkansas. At the end of 2020, this work shifted back to the state health department due to funding.

In August, the state announced a philanthropic effort to provide funding to community-based organizations to support local public health departments with contact tracing, connect people who are not able to isolate and quarantine to services, and support local public health departments in building a culturally and linguistically competent contact tracing workforce.

The state maintains a contact tracing team to support local governments and partner organizations who hire and manage their own teams.

Local governments have retrained public workers (including morgue workers trained in El Paso County; police in Denver). In August 2020, the state had hired more than 800 AmeriCorps and Senior Corps members who will support the state’s COVID-19 response, including contact tracing.

On Nov. 10, 2020, in response to the state’s rising case rate, the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment announced that it will onboard 100 new AmeriCorps members to serve on the state’s COVID Containment Response Corps for staggered nine-month terms. As of February 2021, the partnership had employed around 400 contact tracers.

A volunteer group of public health professionals, the Colorado Public Health Workforce Collaborative, provides structure and support to local public health agencies by coordinating statewide initiatives that ensure an effective and efficient rollout of a contact tracing workforce, recruiting and training that workforce, monitoring the rollout, and facilitating complementary COVID-19 containment activities.

Across the state more than 100 college students from various schools join public health staff and volunteers to make up the state’s team of contact tracers.

In August 2020, the state announced a partnership with the Community Emergency Response Teams to recruit volunteers. The state also announced plans to fund five community organizations to provide outreach related to COVID-19. Local health authorities also plan to hire community health workers. These plans are designed to build trust in communities with the contact tracing process.

In May, the state announced it would partner with NORC at the University of Chicago to hire and train contact tracers and scale up technology.

In May, the state reported that more than 1,000 people, including students, epidemiologists, and other staff from across the state health department, were engaged in contact tracing.

Later that month, the state hired a third-party call center, Maximus, to bolster the state’s contact tracing workforce by supplying 600 additional contact tracers. The state has three contracts with Maximus worth a total of $70 million, and employs at least 4,400 tracers.

In addition to the 250 contact tracers the state had before COVID-19, the state plans to hire up to 750 additional tracers, including student interns from medical and public health colleges. Together with the CDC Foundation, the state hired a deployment coordinator and a training and learning coordinator to oversee the training and deployment of contact tracers and work with the 18 public health districts to ensure operational issues, staffing needs, and performance metrics are met.

The National Guard began assisting the state with contact tracing in August, along with University of Hawaii interns and students, staff from other state departments and Medical Reserve Corps volunteers, and the Kaua’i Police Department. As of mid-October, roughly 32 National Guard members have also been trained to serve as contact tracers. The state health department also formed a Pacific Islander priority investigations and outreach team to help with contact tracing, prioritizing linguistic skills, cultural knowledge and community recommendations when choosing staff.

The Department of Public Safety is working with the state on contact tracing after an employee at the Waiawa Correctional Facility tested positive.

Some local health departments have reassigned staff, and others hired temporary staff or are receiving help from the National Guard, nursing students, or volunteers.

The state’s goal is to employ 3,800 contact tracers, in addition to those already working for state and county health departments.

The state announced the COVID-19 Pandemic Health Navigator Program, a grant opportunity for regional coordinators, to use pandemic health navigators to provide education and outreach to vulnerable communities, coordinate resources for those infected or exposed, and provide contact tracing support to the Illinois Contact Tracing Collaborative.

The county launched the Suburban Cook County COVID-19 Contact Tracing Community Supports Program with a funding opportunity of up to $5.45 million to applicants to focus on priority populations, expand resources to help households quarantine, and increase assess to testing.

Chicago contact tracers include redeployed staff from local health departments and health care organizations. The city is also working to build partnerships with community health workers, students, and others.

As of December, the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership hired about 500 people to conduct community-level contact tracing efforts. Employees will be hired for 18 months. The Workforce Partnership will be set aside 85% of the funds for at least 30 neighborhood organizations that will conduct the work. The partnership will work with University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, NORC at the University of Chicago, Malcolm X College, and Sinai Urban Health Institute to create the new system.

Starting in May, the state shifted contact tracing from state and local health departments to a private company,  Maximus, that will staff a call center to reach out to people who have tested positive, interview them, and notify their contacts. Close contacts will receive daily texts to monitor them for symptoms. Public health students and epidemiologists at the state health department will assist the contact tracers, if needed.

Tracers will take a three- to four-hour online training course provided by the American State and Territorial Health Officers.

In July, the Indiana University School of Public Health announced it had entered into a contract with the city of Indianapolis to hire, train, and manage more than 300 contact tracers through Dec. 31, 2020.

Many of the state’s contact tracers are helping rural counties with small public health departments. Larger counties are handling much of the work themselves.

Local health departments are leading contact tracing. Many are retraining staff, but others are hiring new staff. State officials are assembling a 400-volunteer contact tracing force to assist counties. The state will monitor virus hot spots throughout the state and fill gaps at local health departments. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees are also being deployed to counties.

University of Louisville students, trained through the Johns Hopkins University online contact tracing course, are also involved with state and city contact tracing. As of December, the Louisville Metro Health Department had 250 contact tracers.

The state health department is working with Deloitte Consulting on the statewide contract tracing effort and partnering with vendors across the state to hire up to 700 contact tracers and social support connectors. A social support coordinator assists with any daily needs, such as groceries, a person may require help with while isolating.

The state contracted with Accenture and Salesforce to manage the contact tracing process and create an electronic contact tracing platform. The state uses four Louisiana-based call centers and two hiring agencies. The training for these contact tracers will be managed by Louisiana State University.

Since November, the state redeployed 20 staff members familiar with contact tracing, to handle the increased case load of the winter season.

One local health department reassigned school nurses and disease prevention and behavioral health nurses. Another partnered with a community college to hire and train contact tracers.

Rock Connections will manage volunteers and Deloitte will manage technology for the tracing program.

Rose International is giving support and hiring staff on behalf of the Minnesota Department of Health.

At least one health system has assisted with contact tracing.

As of December 2020, the state’s health department had redeployed 235 staff members, who normally work on other public health initiatives, to help with contact tracing.

Fifty-person teams of Department of Health and Senior Services employees have also been trained to assist with contact tracing.

All contact tracers will be trained in Missouri’s Advanced Contact Tracing System, a central system that manages tracing and investigations.

In August, Montana State University reported it would hire contact tracers to focus on any cases in their community. The tracers will be part of the county’s health department team.

The Montana Public Health Training Center and Montana Department of Public Health and Human Resources is offering a Montana Public Health Contact Tracing Certificate course tailored specifically to the state of Montana. Those that obtain a certificate are eligible to volunteer with the state for pay. As of January 2021, almost 300 people have completed the course.

The Washoe County Health District has taken over the contact tracing work from the state and has partnered with the University of Nevada – Reno to handle the new work.

The contact tracing operation was initially staffed by the state health department’s Bureau of Infectious Disease Control. Over time, additional staff from across the agency provided surge capacity.

The state is also building a Community Contact Tracing Corps through a two-stage approach. For step one, the state will partner with the state’s higher education institutions to train public health graduate students and alumna. For step two, the state contracted with Public Consulting Group (PCG) to recruit, train, and manage additional tracers  deployed to areas with increasing COVID-19 cases. Staff recruited by PCG are required to complete the contact tracing training developed with Rutgers School of Public Health

The state also contracted with Accenture Healthcare Services to set up a call center.

Bloomberg Philanthropies helps the state health department recruit potential contact tracers for the program. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health developed an online curriculum. The nonprofit Vital Strategies provides technical and operational advising.

In April 2020, the state health department launched the Carolina Community Tracing Collaborative, partnering with Community Care of North Carolina and the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers. These organizations will work with the nonprofit Partners in Health to coordinate with and build on contact tracing workforce in the local health departments. The state plans to recruit those who are unemployed, have community engagement experience, and live in the communities that they will serve.

In collaboration with Community Care of North Carolina, the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers Program created an onboarding training curriculum that local health departments can use to train volunteers and other staff as contact tracers or case investigators.

Contact tracers also include some public health graduate students who are receiving course credit and volunteers of the Medical Reserve Corps. The nonprofit Lutheran Social Services is assisting with contact tracing efforts for people who speak English as a second language.

The state partnered with Partners in Health, to increase its contact tracing workforce. The state’s existing force of contact tracers is about 700 workers in the state’s 113 local health departments in a three-tiered staffing plan. College students and faculty members are part of the state’s volunteer pool called the Public Health Assist Team, which local health departments can tap into for COVID-related needs.

Contact tracers are now also helping set up vaccine appointments.

Members of the Oklahoma National Guard were trained in contact tracing, and the state also partnered with universities and Cherokee Nation Public Health for contact tracing staff.

The Oregon COVID-19 Contact Collaborative is a joint contact tracing effort with Oregon Health Authority, local health authorities, health districts, tribal authorities and community-based organizations (including advocacy and community health worker groups).

The state created the Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps, which bolsters  local and community contact tracing efforts.

Regional consortiums will assess the number of contact tracers needed in each area of the state, as well as recruit more staff and coordinate efforts accordingly.

As of December 2020, the state had about 400 contact tracers. As of October, the state had 80 contact tracers dedicated to schools grades K-12.

In September 2020, the University of South Dakota’s Community Action Response Epidemiology (CARE) team announced it would partner with the state to conduct contact tracing. The CARE team includes current health sciences undergraduate students, recent graduates, and School of Health Sciences faculty members.

The Metro Public Health Department replaced 50 contact tracers with an automated messaging platform called Teletask, indicating it plans to leverage the savings to add staff to the county’s COVID-19 vaccine roll-out.

The state is contracting with the MTX group, a private technology company, to build and manage a team  of contact tracers, with a goal of recruiting 4,000 tracers.

Two counties are working with local universities to increase their staffing. One county is also working with Texas A&M University School of Public Health’s Department to develop a larger increase in their pool of epidemiologists. Another county is working with the University of North Texas to recruit 90 students as part-time contact tracers. One local health department is using medical students and educators to supplement staff resources.

As of November, the University of Utah had deployed 200 contact tracers to the state through a partnership agreement to train and field contact tracers.

The state also has three case managers who follow up with positive cases and contacts to link them to resources, such as grocery shopping.

The governor established the Vermont Enhanced Testing and Tracing Task Forces that include experts from the Department of Health and agencies affiliated with the  Human Services and Digital Services, to monitor technological and workforce needs going forward.

In January, the state began accepting bids for a contract to provide up to 75 full-time contact tracers beginning in March 2021. The state would provide training to these staff and continue to lead the contact tracing effort.

As of February 2021, King County reported having 73 contact tracers on staff in their local health jurisdiction.

The National Guard assists with contact tracing (along with other services, such as food delivery and personal protective equipment procurement and distribution). The state health department also partnered with West Virginia University to develop an online class to train contact tracers and certify them through the Association of State and Territorial Health officials.

– GuideSafe HealthCheck, a COVID-19 assessment tool;

-GuideSafe Exposure Notification Application; and

-GuideSafe Event Passport, which uses HealthCheck to render an event passport for presentation at events with 10 or more participants.

For students, use of the HealthCheck function is mandatory, but use of the exposure notification function is voluntary.

After a month-long pilot with students, the state opened up the GuideSafe Exposure Notification App to the general public. As of December, 190,000 people had downloaded the app.

At the end of November, the GuideSafe app joined the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server, which allows Guidesafe to download keys from other exposure notification apps that are on the server.

Contacts of positive cases use an automated monitoring and reporting system called Qualtrics to report symptoms over a 14-day period by text or email.

The governor approved a pilot test of Covid Watch, an anonymous exposure notification app, at the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University as part of a phased rollout. The app uses Bluetooth technology developed by Apple and Google to log Bluetooth signals of other nearby users.

The state is working with Accenture to launch a system using Salesforce and Amazon Connect for case management.

After piloting Google and Apple’s Exposure Notification Express mobile system with a limited population, the state launched CA Notify in December. The app detects whether participants were near someone with COVID-19 via Bluetooth. The state estimated that 4 million people had activated the app in December.

The CA Notify app is part of the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server, which allows it to download keys from other exposure notification apps that are on the server.

Previously, at least two localities had encouraged residents to use a different exposure notification app, SafePass, which also uses Bluetooth technology.

On Oct. 25, 2020, the state’s public health department launched a mobile service application to residents in partnership with Google and Apple called CO Exposure Notifications. The app uses Bluetooth to sense whether a user’s device has been within six feet of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 for a total of 15 minutes or more in one day. The app also sends instructions on how users can isolate, how they can call people who they might have exposed, and other prevention strategies. As of December 2020, 1.4 million people had downloaded the app.

The state is a participant in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server. The state’s exposure notification app can download the keys or codes of any other state’s exposure notification app if they are both participating.

On Nov. 12, 2020, the state launched Google and Apple’s exposure notification app, COVID Alert CT.  The app uses Bluetooth to sense whether a user’s device has been within six feet of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 for a total of 15 minutes or more in one day. If a user tests positive, a contact tracer (working for a state, local health department, or higher education institution) will manually ask the case to share the “close contact” codes their app has logged while they had been contagious. If the user agrees, those who met the close contact criteria for the app will receive an alert notifying them that they were a close contact of an anonymous case. For close contacts to be identified and contacted in this way, they must have the app downloaded. As of January 2021, the app had been activated on 1 million mobile devices.

The state is a participant in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server. The state’s exposure notification app can download the keys or codes of any other state’s exposure notification app if they are both participating.

DC is a participant in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server. DC’s exposure notification app can download the keys or codes of any other state’s exposure notification app if they are both participating.

In September, the state launched an app, COVID Alert DE, that uses Bluetooth technology to alert users they have come in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. The app operates in coordination with several other states. In December, the app had been downloaded 78,000 times.

The state is a participant in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server. The state’s exposure notification app can download the keys or codes of any other state’s exposure notification app if they are both participating.

Several counties in South Florida use an exposure notification app, CombatCOVID, which notifies users if they have come into contact with someone who has COVID-19.

Georgia Tech uses the NOVID exposure notification app. The app uses Bluetooth and sound waves to detect distance between two phones using the app and logs the anonymous codes of phones that are within six feet for more than 15 minutes. The app is voluntary for students, faculty, and staff on campus.

In August, the state announced it would be using two local apps called AlohaSafe Story, which uses GPS technology to log the user’s location, and AlohaSafe Alert, which anonymously records contacts through Bluetooth and  Google/Apple Exposure Notification  technology. In November, the state started pilot testing AlohaSafe and in January it launched statewide. By early February, the app had been downloaded over 187,000 times since its launch in the last month.

Users of either app can choose to share their data securely with Hawaii’s contact tracers if they contract COVID-19.

The state is also a participant in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server. The state’s exposure notification app can download the keys or codes of any other state’s exposure notification app if they are both participating.

In August, the University of Kansas launched an app created by CVKeyProject to reopen its campus. Users can conduct a health self-assessment and then generate a QR code to verify access to campus buildings.

As of August, the state began rolling out Deloitte’s GovConnect Contact Tracing and Tracking software as a comprehensive case management system for COVID-19.

In January 2021, the state announced a  new COVID-19 tracing app called COVID Defense.

The free app uses Bluetooth technology to send exposure alerts to contacts.

The Louisiana Department of Health’s Contact Tracing program is using SMS text messaging to provide COVID-19 positive individuals, their contacts, and travelers to the State of Louisiana with advice and support about infection, isolation and quarantine, how to protect their own health and that of others, and assistance in meeting basic needs for food, shelter and medical assistance while quarantined.

The contact tracers also collect personal information from individuals through SMS text messaging about their COVID-19 symptoms, health, isolation and quarantine plans.

In December, Maine launched  technology to send text messages to individuals who test positive for COVID-19. Individuals must opt-in to receive the text messages.

The state uses the app Exposure Notifications Express, based on Apple and Google’s software framework, in coordination with several other states. The app uses Bluetooth data to alert users if they come into contact with someone who has reported testing positive for COVID-19. The state reported over 1 million people downloaded the app within the first week of it’s November launch.

The state is a participant in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server. The state’s exposure notification app can download the keys and codes of any other state’s exposure notification app if they are both participating.

Salesforce helps capture data from case investigations and contact tracing. Data from Salesforce are uploaded to MAVEN, the state disease surveillance system, daily. Testing facilities also report cases and contact info to MAVEN.

In December, the state selected Boston University along with the nonproft Mitre to pilot test a digital contact tracing app.

On Nov. 9, 2020, the state launched MI COVID Alert, an app based on Apple and Google’s exposure notification platform using Bluetooth technology. Users who test positive receive a PIN that enables them to see their test results. Close contacts, defined as other app users within six feet of the person with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes, will receive a notification that they are a close contact of an anonymous case, but only after the test results are manually entered into the system. In December 2020, the app had been downloaded 500,000 times and the state launched a statewide text message campaign to encourage Michigan residents to use the MI COVID Alert contact tracing app.

The state is a participant in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server. The state’s exposure notification app can download the keys and codes of any other state’s exposure notification app if they are both participating.

The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association produced two mobile applications for restaurants called Temp Check and Guest Protect so that restaurants could meet state requirements for screening staff and collecting guest information.

HealthPartners and the University of Minnesota developed a mobile application called SafeDistance. Clinicians at HealthPartners are encouraging patients and the public in the Twin Cities area to use the application.

In mid-November, the state debuted COVIDaware MN, an app that notifies people when their phone has been in close proximity to the phone of a person with COVID-19 for enough time to be considered a close contact. By January 2021, the app had been downloaded 367,000 times.

COVIDaware MN participates in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ National Key Server, which allows the state to download keys from other exposure notification apps that are on the server.

The Electronic COVID-19 Case Reporting System allows medical providers and required reporting entities to enter positive case information.

EpiTrax is a comprehensive disease surveillance system that receives reports from COVID-19 tests. EpiTrax uses test data to trigger case management and investigations by local public health agencies (LPHAs) and DHSS staff.

MO ACTS uses COVID-19 case contacts from EpiTrax and serves as the central contact tracing system for LPHAs, DHSS and contracted staff. Through MO ACTS, contacts can be contacted by phone, text or email.

Missoula County uses PatientOne, a locally developed app, to help with case management of quarantined individuals.

Yellowstone County is using software for trend identification for positive cases and contacts.

The state is also working with Deloitte and Salesforce on a statewide digital contact tracing solution.

In August 2020, the state launched COVID Trace, an opt-in contact tracing app developed by Google and Apple that allows phones to anonymously exchange information when in close contact through Bluetooth.

In December, the state expanded the capabilities of the COVID Trace app by launching Exposure Notification Express (ENX) through a partnership with Apple and Google. Now individuals can turn on ENX to alert users who have been within six feet for more than 15 minutes of a COVID-19-positive individual. The app is on the National Key Server, which allows apps to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC have joined the National Key Server.

Some counties are struggling with the Salesforce platform. For that reason, Clark County began using EpiTrax. Now the state wants to expand EpiTrax use to the rest of the state.

The state has also implemented a vendor developed Salesforce solution to support contact notification and monitoring called Granite Trace.

In September 2020, the state launched an exposure notification app, COVID Alert NJ, using Bluetooth proximity technology. The app is based on the platform developed by Google and Apple.

The app is on the National Key Server which allows apps to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC have joined the National Key Server.

The City of Santa Fe is encouraging residents to use a COVID-19 exposure notification app, NOVID. The app allows users to anonymously log their COVID-19 status and then uses both Bluetooth and ultrasonic technology to measure the “time-sound takes” to travel in order to sense the proximity of other NOVID-using phones. The app does not use Apple and Google’s platform.

The state is partnering with New Mexico State University on an app it has developed for use on its campus; the state does not yet have a statewide app.

In October, the state released an exposure notification app, COVID Alert NY, using Bluetooth technology. As of February 2021,  more than 1.3 million individuals have downloaded it. The app is based on technology developed by Apple and Google. The app is on the National Key Server which allows apps to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC have joined the National Key Server.

In September, the state launched an exposure notification app using Bluetooth technology – SlowCOVIDNC.

The app is based on Google and Apple’s Exposure Notification System and will alert users if they have been in close contact with individuals who later test positive for COVID-19. The state is targeting marketing of the app at populations at high risk of exposure to COVID-19, including colleges and universities. As of January 2021, there have been over 660,000 downloads of the SlowCOVIDNC app.

The app is also on the National Key Server which allows apps to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC have joined the National Key Server.

The Care19 Alert app is on the National Key Server which allows apps to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC have joined the National Key Server.

The state is developing a case management system using Microsoft Dynamic.

Some local entities, such as the Lake County school district and the Cincinnati International Airport, are partnering with Volan Technology to use a Bluetooth-based contact tracing application.

In September, the state announced it would launch an exposure notification app using Bluetooth technology. The app is based on the platform created by Apple and Google.

Piloting of the state’s exposure notification app, OR Notify, ended in December 2020. The app uses Bluetooth technology and is based on the platform created by Apple and Google. The state plans to release the app before April 2021.

The state tested the app on the OSU campus, with nearly 5,000 participants. The system is not intended to replace traditional contact tracing, but will be used to alert users who were in close proximity to a positive case.

In September 2020, the state launched an app, COVID Alert PA, which uses proximity exposure technology. Users voluntarily report when they test positive, which in turn anonymously alerts other phones that have been in proximity for a specified time. It is available in four  languages. Individuals ages 13 through 17 are also able to use the app with parental consent. As of February 2021, there were 778,000 downloads of the COVID-19 Alert PA App.

The app is on the National Key Server, which allows apps to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of  February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC had joined the National Key Server.

As of January 2021, the Rhode Island The Department of Health (RIDH) launched a text-based contact tracing system enabling residents to fill out an online form, providing contact information for close contacts. The system will automatically text the list of people, informing them they must self-quarantine. The system builds on the existing health portal, which residents use to check their COVID-19 results. The system is not designed to replace human contact tracers but to supplement the contact tracing work.

CRUSH COVID RI, an app to share information, including daily location data for up to the past 20 days, with the RIDOH. The data are only made available to RIDOH if users opt-in to sharing. If locations emerge where multiple people tested positive in a short time frame, RIDOH will use the data to take necessary steps to close and sanitize that location. It also includes a symptom tracking survey.

As of January 2021, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control does not use a contact tracing app. They maintain their data separately for privacy and security purposes.

The state recently implemented new patient management software that will expand capacity to rapidly reach contacts, provide education on the importance of quarantine, and allow them to monitor positive cases during quarantine.

Together with North Dakota, the state launched Care19, a location-tracking app to map the spread of COVID-19 and assist with contact tracing. The Care19 app is a location-logging application for use in contact tracing. The health department will ask people who test positive to share their location log for tracing purposes. The app can also automatically notify others who were close by and may have been exposed. Use of the app and disclosure of location information is voluntary.

A state lawmaker filed a bill in December 2020, that would prohibit the use of cell phone location data in contact tracing.

As of November 2020, the state was considering using the free Apple and Google technology, Exposure Notification Express, to notify users when they have been exposed to an positive COVID-19 case.

In December 2020, the state began sending automated text messages and emails to positive individuals and their contacts who do not answer an initial phone call from contact tracers. The text message or email includes a link to a secure form where the person can provide contact tracing information electronically.

Starting in December 2020, contacts maybe contacted via text message prior to receiving a call.

The state is using the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System Base System to manage COVID-19 case data.  This system helps public health departments manage reportable disease data and supports public health investigations.

During outreach, contact tracers also attempt to enroll cases into the Sara Alert system. This system sends email and text messages that prompt a person with COVID-19 to complete a daily self-report of their symptoms.

The state launched COVIDCheck, a website which allows people to check their symptoms and guides them to testing, if needed.

The state also launched a proximity tracking app called COVIDWISE. Users must opt-in to the COVIDWISE notification system which uses their phone’s Bluetooth technology to track other app users. If one user encounters another who had a positive COVID-19 test within the last 14 days, the app will provide an exposure notification alert and next steps from the Department of Health.

In December 2020, the COVIDWISE app became part of the National Key Server which allows it to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC have joined the National Key Server.

In February 2020, the state launched COVIDWISE Express as an additional exposure notification tool for iPhone users. COVIDWISE Express does not require users to download the app, but is activated through the Exposure Logging on their smartphone.

The state uses the WA Notify app, which is based on Google Apple Exposure Notification technology. Users can opt in to receive notifications if a contact tests positive for COVID-19.

As of February 2021, WA Notify had more than 1.78 million users. The app is also on the National Key Server which allows it to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC have joined the National Key Server.

The state uses COVIDWISE, an exposure notification app, to support traditional contact tracing.

The state launched the WI Exposure Notification app in partnership with Apple and Google.  The app is on the National Key Server which allows it to download keys from other state apps on the server.

As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC had joined the National Key Server.

The app is also on the National Key Server which allows it to download keys from other state apps on the server. As of February 2021, 21 states and Washington, DC. have joined the National Key Server.

The state is using more than $30 million in CARES Act funding to provide testing, symptom monitoring, and notification of exposure to COVID-19 for higher education students in all of the state’s public and private institutions.

To develop a contact tracing curriculum, the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Center for Rural Health and Workforce accessed a $95,000 supplemental federal CARES Act grant, which the state matched.

About $2.1 million has been allocated to hire contact tracers.

Maricopa County put $15 million of its federal CARES Act funding toward contact tracing.

In July, Pima County health department entered into a six-month, $10-million contract with Maximus Health Services Inc, with options to extend as needed.

In December, the state announced it would provide $115 million to its three public universities to cover COVID-19-related costs. The funds are drawn from  the Coronavirus Relief Fund,  part of the federal CARES Act.

Also in July, the state entered into a $20 million contract each with General Dynamics Information Technology and the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care to employ 300-350 contact tracers each.

In July, the Arkansas Legislative Council approved $7 million for contact tracing in the Marshallese and Latinx communities of Northwest Arkansas.

The state allocated $28 million to institutions of higher education from the state CARES Act Fund. The University of Central Arkansas was allocated $977,000 for contact tracing efforts. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ contact tracing effort is supported by $5 million in federal coronavirus aid allocated by the Arkansas Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act Steering Committee.

The deadline to spend down Arkansas’ CARES Act Funds was extended until March 30, 2021, and the state has about $10 million left to spend on contact tracing, testing, and PPE, at higher education institutions.

Sacramento County budgeted $400,000 for staff for activities including contact tracing. The county expects to be reimbursed by federal dollars from the CARES Act. Tulare County spent $288,160 on 33 contact tracers. The state awarded an $8.7 million contract to the University of California San Francisco for training.

Los Angeles County allocated $10 million to community-based organizations to help with communications, navigations, and case management and is offering a $20 gift card for participation in contact tracing.

A statewide public awareness campaign to encourage residents to answer contact tracing calls is funded by multiple private partners, including Jeff Skoll, the California Health Care Foundation, the California Endowment, Twitter, and Facebook, which have committed a total of $5.1 million.

In September, the Skoll Foundation funded grants to six community-based organizations across California representing groups disproportionally affected by COVID-19 to improve cultural competency in contact tracing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2021 budget proposal includes $473 million to improve contact tracing.

Through new federal funding distributed by the US Centers for Diease Control and Prevention, the California Department of Public Health is sending new funds to California counties to support their COVID-19 Public Health efforts including case investigation and contact tracing.  Sacremento County is receiving $60 million, Yolo County will receive $10.4 million, Placer County will receive $12.1 million, and El Dorado County will receive $6.5 million.

In May 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided Colorado $160 million to help testing and contact tracing.

By August 2020, Colorado had received nearly $3.5 billion in federal funding, 24% ($840 million) of which supports COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, and case investigation.

The federal agency for volunteering and service, the Corporation for National and Community Service, will support Colorado’s contact tracing initiative by redeploying AmeriCorps members and providing nearly $2 million in federal funding for new AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associates and Senior Corps volunteers.

In the same month, the state announced the release of $20 million to regional health districts to support local tracing efforts. This funding came to the state through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity Cooperative Agreement.

In December, Gov. Ned Lamont announced that over $311 million of Connecticut’s allocation from the federal COVID relief bill would support vaccination, testing, and contact tracing.

The state reported that it invested about $390,000 of federal funding to develop, market, and maintain the COVID Alert DE app.

New Castle County will contribute up to $3.1 million of its federal CARES Act funding to the statewide contact tracing program.

In August, Maximus reported that the cost of the contract would likely increase to $65 to $75 million.

Palm Beach County is paying $875,600 in federal coronavirus aid to use the CombatCOVID exposure notification app, and Miami-Dade will pay $775,000.

Palm Beach County allocated $1 million in CARES Act funding for contact tracing. State funding for the county’s contact tracing will run out at the end of November, but the county is in contact with the state and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify additional sources.

In December, federal funding for the Hawaii National Guard contact tracing assistance was extended through March 2021.

The state is expected to receive $81 million for testing and contact tracing from the Federal COVID Relief bill.

The governor’s 2021 proposed budget includes $250 million to continue to respond to the pandemic, including vaccine rollouts, testing and contact tracing.

All 97 local health departments have applied for state funding support totaling $230 million to increase contact tracing.

Chicago awarded the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership $56 million in state and federal funds to work with 31 community-based organizations to create a COVID Contact Tracing Corps and COVID Resource Coordination Hub.

The state dedicated $60 million in federal funds for the Pandemic Health Navigator Program. In addition, the state pledged in July to provide $150 million to local health departments for contact tracing. As of late October, $21 million has been released.

The state dedicated $250 million to reimburse local governments outside of Cook, Lake, Will, Kane, and DuPage counties for pandemic-relief expenditures, including contact tracing.

Indianapolis is contracting with the Indiana University School of Public Health at $10.5 million to provide contact tracing.

In January, Indianapolis allocated an additional $1.9 million in city funds to support ongoing contact tracing.

The state contracted with DOMO for $250,000 to develop new contact tracing software.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas awarded a $200,000 grant to the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments, which passed through funds in $5,000 increments to local health departments across the state to support contact tracing efforts.

About $112 million in CARES Act funding for additional contact tracing staffing is effective through Dec. 31, 2020.

The Louisville mayor estimates the cost of the city’s contact tracing contract will range between $25 million to $100 million; federal funds are expected to help cover the cost.

Nearly $290 million of the state’s share of the December 2020 Federal COVID Relief bill will be used for COVID-19 contact tracing, testing and mitigation efforts.

In May 2020, the state established a $1 million contract  with Louisiana State University to help ramp up contact tracing.

As of December 2020, the state has spent $30 million on contact tracing.

In September 2020, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services awarded $1 million to 24 organizations in Maine that support contact tracing or contact tracing–adjacent activities.

In January 2021, Maine’s congressional delegation announced the state will receive an additional $89 million in federal COVID relief funds, including $77 million for testing, contact tracing, and other strategies.

In January 2021,  Maryland’s congressional delegation announced that the state health department will receive over $400 million in federal funding from the Federal COVID Relief bill to expand COVID-19 vaccine distribution, contact tracing, and testing capacity.

The state will get $452.1 million to expand COVID-19 testing, tracing, and mitigation as part of the December 2020 Federal COVID Relief bill.

In May 2020, Michigan received $315 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to support COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.

Also in August, the state awarded $1.55 million to community-based organizations and tribes to increase community awareness of and participation in COVID-19 testing, case interviews, and contact tracing. In December the state released another funding opportunity for community outreach and engagement, with a total funding amount of $1.5 million.

Staff hired by St. Louis county are funded by $173.5 million from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The county has used $600,000 of federal relief funds for additional contact tracing training and data collection.

Jackson and Clay counties allocated $2.8 million and $1.5 million, respectively, from their pool of federal dollars to hire contact tracers.

The Springfield City Council approved $2,748,859 for a contract to expand contact tracing capacity with staffing and technology capabilities, with costs likely to be covered by CARES Act funding distributed by the county.

In June, the state purchased Salesforce contact tracing software for $1 million dollars.

A $3.4 million grant from the state supports a partnership between the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Health Districts to hire 200 student contact tracers. In January 2021, the state awarded the University of Nevada – Las Vegas School of Public Health an additional $1.7 million to continue contact tracing efforts.

Specifically, the state allocated $61 million dollars from the CARES Act for testing and contact tracing. The state will also use $180 million dollars from the latest federal COVID relief bill for testing and contact tracing.

The state paid $16.3 million to the Rutgers School of Public Health to recruit, train and pay the first 1,000 members of the Community Contact Tracing Corps for a period ending Sept. 15, 2020. Another $1.9 million went to Cambridge-based Dimagi for use of the CommCare database platform the tracers use in their work.

In August, the state  contracted with the Public Consulting Group for a three-month $23.5 million contract to hire, manage, and pay 1,200 contact tracers.

New Mexico also has a $7.5 million dollar contract with MTX for contact tracing.

In November, the governor signed a relief package passed by the state legislature allocating $10 million dollars for testing, vaccine distribution, and contact tracing.

In July, the state announced more than $30 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be distributed to counties to enhance COVID-19 contact tracing and flu prevention. The majority of funds will be used to increase local health department staffing capacity for enhanced detection, surveillance and prevention of COVID-19.

As of January 2021, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has spent $125 million CARES Act funding on testing and contact tracing

The governor allocated $100 million of CARES Act funding to higher education, some of which will go to contact tracing.

The Cleveland Foundation is offering grants to community-based Cleveland nonprofits for prevention efforts, including contact tracing.

In November 2020, the Cherokee Nation received a $4 million grant for testing and contact tracing through a National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Underserved Populations grant.

The state  contracted with Insight Global at  $23 million to increase its contact tracing workforce.

The state contracted with NearForm Ltd. at $1.9 million to deploy and maintain the Covid Alert PA app.

As of January 2021, the Rhode Island Department of Health had received $70.4 million in federal funding, with $61 million supporting testing, contact tracing, and containment and mitigation efforts, and $9.5 million supporting vaccine distribution.

The Memphis mayor presented a proposal to the city council that would allocate $8.7 million for the Shelby County Health Department for increased contact tracing, $2.7 million of this would go to the health department to hire staff.

In January 2021, the state announced an additional $86 million in funding for local and tribal health departments to offset COVID-19 related expenses, including contact tracing.