Efficacy of a Student-Led Community Contact Tracing Program Partnered with an Academic Medical Center during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Pelton, Matt; Medina, Daniela; Sood, Natasha; Bogale, Kaleb; Buzzelli, Lindsay; Blaker, Joshua; Nye, Derek; Nguyen, Paul D.H.; Giglio, Marisa; Smiley, Catherine; Michalak, Nathan; Legro, Nicole R.; Connolly, Mary; Dishong, Rachel A.; Nunez, Johnathan; Du, Ping; Exten, Cara

PURPOSE: Contact tracing has proven successful at controlling COVID-19 globally and the Center for Health Security has recommended that the United States add 100,000 contact tracers to the current workforce. METHODS: To address gaps in local contact tracing, health professional students partnered with their academic institution to conduct contact tracing for all COVID-19 cases diagnosed on site, which included identifying and reaching their contacts, educating participants and providing social resources to support effective quarantine and isolation. RESULTS: From March 24(th) to May 28(th), 536 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases were contacted and reported an average of 2.6 contacts. Contacts were informed of their exposure, asked to quarantine and monitored for the onset of symptoms. Callers reached 94% of cases and 84% of contacts. 74% of cases reported at least 1 contact. Household members had higher rates of reporting symptoms (OR 1.65, 95% CI 1.19:2.28). The average test turnaround time decreased from 21.8 days for the first patients of this program to 2.3 days on the eleventh week. CONCLUSIONS: This provides evidence for the untapped potential of community contact tracing to respond to regional needs, confront barriers to effective quarantine and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.