NYC Test and Trace Corps Can't Reach 1/3 of the Contacts It Receives

The Test and Trace Corps in New York City -- tasked with coronavirus testing and tracing contacts of those diagnosed with the virus -- has been unable to reach one-third of the contacts whose information it receives, according to the organization's Executive Director, Dr. Ted Long.

On Monday, Long provided a glimpse into the work the Test and Trace Corps has been undertaking over the past three weeks.

Overall, Long said that although the Corps does not have phone numbers for all the people recently diagnosed with coronavirus, they have been able to reach 97 percent of those for whom they do have phone numbers.

"For all cases of people newly diagnosed with coronavirus, we don’t have phone numbers for all of them, but for those that we do, we’ve been able to reach 97 percent of them by phone. That’s to be compared to Louisiana that reached 48 percent of the people that they called and boston that reached 60 percent of the people that they called," Long said. "The fact that we’ve been able to reach 97 percent of people newly diagnosed with coronavirus that we have a phone number for, shows the program is working."

Long also shared that among the cases that completed the Corps' interview process, which includes providing contacts, "74 percent to date have shared contacts with us. In the last week alone, week three, 86 percent of our cases – people newly diagnosed with coronavirus that got through our interview – gave us contacts."

Long believes that the reason why 86 percent of the people in just this past week provided contacts "is because more than half of our tracers are people from our hardest hit communities across New York City. They understand our communities and our communities, therefore, trust them."

Of the contacts, or the people that were exposed to the coronavirus, that the Corps called there was a group of more than 650 that by the time they were called they were "actively symptomatic and likely contagious," Long said.

"This means that this group of 650 New Yorkers if we did not nothing, if this program did not exist they may go out and infect three more New Yorkers each," Long said, adding: "We’ve already potentially prevented, in the first three weeks alone of the program, up to 2,000 new cases of the coronavirus to keep New York City safe."

According to the data provided, in the last three weeks to date, the Corps identified 7,584 new cases of the coronavirus. Of those, 6,420 -- or 85 percent --had accurate phone numbers and when the Corps called them they were able to reach 97 percent of them.

Additionally, there was a group of 2,808 -- or 74 percent -- of those cases that the Corps was able to reach that provided contacts contacts.

"That group of 2,808 are the people that completed the interviews and represents 74 percent of the people that completed our interviews when we gave them the chance to give us contacts," Long said. "I want to draw the point here that this is better than it was the first two weeks of the program. In the first two weeks of the program 69 percent of cases that completed our interviews were giving us contacts, now in the last week alone it jumped up to 86 percent of the cases we talked to gave us contacts."

Long, once again, said that this growing percentage points to a growing trust between the public and the contact tracing program.

In total, the Corps now has more than 6,600 contacts that it generated. Of those, it has a phone number for 77 percent of them and of those it was able to reach 89 percent of them. Long called this a “substantial improvement” from last week.

The Corps is taked with helping New Yorkers receive free and easy testing for COVID-19. It also ensures that anyone with the virus receives care, and can safely isolate to prevent the spread.

"To date, we have been monitoring 6,400 New Yorkers. Of those 2,000 have told us that in order for them to stay home and keep their families and their neighbors safe they needed help. And we’ve been able to 2,065 times offer them that help. That help can come in the form of food delivery, help with getting their medications delivered even help with eviction notices or with their jobs," Long said.

"Our resource navigators stand ready to help New Yorkers and this has been a key way that we’ve been able to help New Yorkers stay at home and prevent disease spread. In addition to that, 63 New Yorkers have stayed at our hotels to date as well."