PROVIDENCE, RI -- In order to safely reopen the American economy and prevent a second wave of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) from flooding the health care system and further damaging the economy, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) says the United States needs a comprehensive, methodical strategy to increase swift, accurate testing and contact tracing.  Senator Reed backs a $30 billion comprehensive national coronavirus testing plan that Senate Democrats have put forth.

While it has been reported that a bipartisan agreement on an interim bill, known as "COVID 3.5," includes $25 billion for testing, Senator Reed is calling on Congress to provide at least an additional $4 billion COVID-19 Contact Tracing Fund in the next comprehensive bill dedicated to helping states recruit, hire, train, and staff a nationwide network of contact tracers and deploy voluntary digital tools that can integrate data to quickly alert people who have crossed paths with a newly diagnosed COVID-19 patient.

Contact tracers are a combination of disease detectives and social workers who can swiftly track down and alert people who have been exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 case and request they self-quarantine and connect them to testing or treatment if needed.  Contact tracers must be trained to interview patients, do investigative work, and monitor those at risk with daily check-ins.  The work is labor intensive, and involves some old-fashioned sleuthing.  Much of the job can be done remotely by people working from home.

“The only way to safely reopen the economy and get people back to work is with appropriate standards of testing and contact tracing.  As the initial COVID-19 wave recedes, we’ve got to wisely invest so we are ready for the next one that is sure to hit as soon as we reopen things.  Contact tracers aren’t a cure all, but they are critical to stopping the spread of this virus and keeping everyone safe.  Precision contact tracing can mitigate major outbreaks by identifying those most at risk and alerting them to help limit further infections.  We need a national strategy to train, staff, and deploy well-qualified contact tracers across the U.S.,” said Senator Reed.  “As we prepare for the next phase of COVID-19 response and recovery, I urge Congress to approve additional resources to create a training pipeline and a national network of contact tracers.  We can’t stop COVID-19 without a vaccine, but with effective testing and tracing, we can contain it.”

Rhode Island is among the states already using this strategy and has a team of over 100 public health workers and National Guard members who are dedicated to contact tracing.  Nationwide, there are an estimated 2,200 contract tracers currently at work, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), which represents state health departments.

But in order to begin to safely relax stay-at-home orders for communities nationwide, public health experts believe the U.S. needs hundreds of thousands of contact tracers on the beat.  A joint report by ASTHO and researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that “100,000 contact tracing investigators may be necessary for full recovery, at the cost of $3.6 billion.  That is a small price to pay given the economic devastation this virus has wrought nationally and around the globe.”

Reed says the next bipartisan coronavirus relief package should include at least $4 billion in federal funding to hire, train, and field an army of contact tracers for a 12 month deployment.  Reed says states should be incentivized to hire qualified workers who have been recently laid off and are willing to sign up for a one year work commitment.  And there should be a small state minimum of $20 million so all states can recruit, staff, and train contract tracers and bolster state-run testing initiatives.

“Weeks from now, we still won’t have a vaccine in place.  But if we invest in recruiting, hiring, and training people to do high-level contact tracing, we’ll bolster public health and at least have a workforce in place capable of mitigating the spread,” said Reed.

Massachusetts recently teamed up with the Boston-based non-profit Partners in Health for a program aimed at hiring 1,000 people to do contact tracing.  Workers in Massachusetts will be paid $27 per hour and may work on personal computers from home.  The project is estimated to cost $44 million. 

Senator Reed notes that under the leadership of Governor Gina M. Raimondo, Rhode Island has been an early adapter and leader on contact tracing.  The state seeks to conduct extensive contact tracing for all COVID-19 cases in Rhode Island, and Governor Raimondo has urged Rhode Islanders to keep a daily log of whom they come into contact with in case they become infected.  This helps contact tracers swiftly and thoroughly do their job, alert those in danger, and help stop the spread.

The state has also encouraged Rhode Islanders to opt-in to a voluntary program that allows people to install an app on their cellphones that can monitor whether the individual came into contact with another phone owner who was recently diagnosed with COVID-19 and quickly alert them.  And Governor Raimondo has led efforts to ensure data collection is done without infringing on personal civil liberties.

Reed is also calling for a uniform standard of entirely voluntary apps to be developed and deployed so people in all fifty states who want to use technology to accurately and quickly get COVID-19 alerts if they came into contact with someone who was infected can access the information.  Reed stressed that users must give affirmative consent, apps should be encrypted, there should be limits on what data is collected and for how long, none of the data can be used for commercial purposes, and that the accrued data must be protected and permanently destroyed at an appropriate time.  He is urging app developers to work together and share the source code with the public so all Americans can be assured of their privacy and security.

Reed says that while states got an infusion of CARES Act funding, this new, dedicated stream of $4 billion in federal assistance will allow states to surge a well-run, cohesive contact tracing workforce and deploy standardized voluntary trace apps across state lines to help stop the spread of COVID-19.