Kris Box, the state health commissioner, discusses the importance of testing and contact tracing.
INDIANAPOLIS — For weeks Gov. Eric Holcomb and State Health Commissioner Kris Box have urged Hoosiers to hunker down and self-isolate to reduce the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus.
As talk transitions to reopening and how the state will navigate the financial fallout, public health officials emphasize the importance of widespread testing and contact tracing. Box said that contact tracing, or analyzing people who may have had contact with an infected person, relied heavily on that first positive test.
“My ask, at this time, is for physicians and health care providers across the state to be able to test individuals that are sick,” Box said. “And they don’t have to have underlying conditions; they don’t have to work at a long-term care facility.”
Box said the lack of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and correct testing equipment may be barriers to testing.
“When we don’t test, then I don’t have that positive test to follow up on from a contact tracing standpoint when making sure that we follow up on where that individual has been and who’s been in contact with them,” Box said.
Box said that by quarantining at home, people will hopefully have less contacts and ease the burden of contact tracing.
“That’s an incredibly important part before we open up so we can track down these cases as quickly as possible and then we can make sure that those individuals are isolating and (follow up) with any individuals that have had close contact,” Box said. “It’s a very difficult process; it’s become hard with the number of cases we’ve had.”
Box said the state would have to hire additional call center help to do contact traces and investigations for the department.
For specific locations where this virus spread, Box said Tuesday that grocery store workers, long-term care workers and public transportation employees had all reported cases.
“When we first started tracing this, it was very clear that it was spreading at weddings or funerals or big national conferences or conventions,” Box said, referring to the state’s first case from a Boston exposition. “Now that situation appears to be more oftentimes in a health care setting.”
The latest federal stimulus package replenishes funding for small businesses but adds an additional $25 billion for states to expand testing. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to hear the bill on Thursday.
The state will have to present a testing plan to federal officials to receive the funding, which Box said would include who currently provides testing, where those facilities are located, their testing capacities and their testing barriers.
“So that individuals that need to be tested know where in their community they can in their community to get that testing done,” Box said. “And a big part of that is bringing all of those services together, mapping that out and coming up with that plan on how we’re going to make sure this is sustainable through this time next year.”
Holcomb said testing and contact tracing would be key to Hoosiers returning to safe work environments.
“We will be ramping that effort up and that will be critically important – it’s a part of our equation – as we look at where those (case) numbers are,” Holcomb said. “Every step of the way … this will be a critically important part of the whole formula to get back to that new normal.”
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