Contact tracing racks up $30 million in costs but hasn’t worked out like officials hoped – By Sam Karlin (The Advocate) / Dec 5 2020
Early on in the pandemic, Louisiana embarked on what was thought to be a key part of the state’s effort to contain the coronavirus and keep cases low until a vaccine was produced: Contact tracing.
Seven months and $30 million later, the program has not produced the type of results health experts initially wanted. Fewer than a third of people reached by the hundreds of contact tracers have shared close contacts, according to data provided by the Louisiana Department of Health, though the rate has improved slightly in recent months. And the number of people reached is still lower than 70% of cases.
In all, the program has successfully reached a little over 47,000 people identified as close contacts of people infected with COVID-19, meaning the state has spent about $632 per person.
Meanwhile, the virus has come roaring back twice in Louisiana since the initial wave of cases in New Orleans, surging once in the summer and again in recent weeks, killing more than 6,000 Louisiana residents since the first case was discovered, in March.
