DOOR CO, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – In Door County, the health department has decided to stop contacting people who came into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.
Instead, the health department is relying on the person who tested positive to do that work as it tries to keep up with the recent rise in cases.
Door County Public Health says throughout the pandemic, its standard has been to communicate with someone within 24 hours of learning they tested positive for COVID-19. Recently, less than 24 hours has turned into a few days.
“We started experiencing some delay last week in terms of the contact tracing,” said Ken Pabich, the county administrator. “We deferred some of those to the state. The state was also behind in their tracing and those calls.”
Even more cases came in over the weekend, leading to the county’s decision to focus on communication with those who’ve tested positive and let that individual contact anyone they may have exposed the virus to.
“They should inform that person that they were in close contact and that the best thing to do is to quarantine or go into isolation for 14 days and monitor yourself for any types of symptoms related to those conditions,” said Pabich.
FOX 11 asked Pabich is this change is safe and whether people can be trusted to inform close contacts of the exposure.
“It’s happening across the state and across the country right now just because of the volume and the numbers that we have. In a lot of the cases we’re finding the people are more comfortable talking to their close contacts, so from our standpoint it’s the best solution that we have right now that we can deal with.”
From the start of the pandemic in March through August, Door County had 152 residents test positive for COVID. In the past month, that number has more than doubled to 354.
“I will tell you in our surge capacity at the state level we’re needing to hire more people,” said Andrea Palm, the secretary designee for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. “Our workload is tremendous as well as we try to backup local public health to meet their needs.”
The county is hoping these changes are only temporary. It’s hoping to hire more people so it can once again contact people who’ve been exposed to the virus.
“The good news obviously is we’re not having a lot of hospitalizations yet, which is critical,” said Pabich.
Door County’s hospitalizations are in stark contrast to the record numbers the rest of our area is seeing.
Door County also has remained low for deaths. It’s had three, the last being reported on May 1st.
If you have tested positive, health officials ask you to do the following:
Stay Home and isolate for a minimum of 10 days after symptom onset of symptoms.
If you did not have symptoms and were tested, remain isolated for 10 days from the date of testing.
Notify your employer.
Notify your close contacts asking them to quarantine for 14 days from last contact with you.
To help further stop the spread of the virus, when out in the community, please do the following:
Stay home if possible.
Wear a face covering and physical distance (at least 6 feet).
Stay at home if you are sick.
Cancel events and avoid groups, gatherings, play dates, and nonessential appointments.
Avoid unnecessary activities and travel within the community that puts you in contact with others and stay away from group gatherings. Cases are resulting from a variety of situations in which people move about the community and gather, including parties, reunions, weddings, places of work and schools.
