GREENFIELD — To keep up with increased cases of the novel coronavirus in Hancock County, the county’s health department has hired a new part-time contact tracer.
The request from the department was officially approved by the Hancock County Commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 17, a day on which the county set another record for infections. However, due to the urgency of the situation, health officer Dr. Sandra Aspy had requested and received prior approval from the commissioners to hire the new staff member immediately.
The contact tracing position will be part-time and likely short-term, and will be paid for with funds received from the state to deal with COVID-19 expenses. It is funded at least through January of 2021, and Aspy said other grant funding could likely be used
The position is required, Aspy said, because the health department’s existing three-person staff is struggling to keep up with the current number of cases they are receiving.
“It’s kind of a stopgap,” Aspy said.
Hancock County has set new records for the highest number of daily COVID-19 cases most days over the past week.
On Tuesday, Hancock County set another daily high with 82 new COVID-19 infections reported, raising its total to 2,102. No new fatalities were added, keeping the county’s death toll from the novel coronavirus at 48. The county also added 568 new administered tests, raising that total to 37,606. Hancock County’s positivity rate for all tests from Nov. 4 to Nov. 11 dropped slightly to 9.8%, and its cumulative rate remained the same, at 5.3%. The seven-day positivity rate for unique individuals from Nov. 4 to Nov. 11 remained the same, at 17.6%, while the cumulative rate rose slightly to 9.1%
Contact tracing is a process by which “close contacts” of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 — people who have been closer than 6 feet away from them for a cumulative 15 minutes within 24 hours — are contacted and asked to quarantine.
State health officials have in the past said they are seeing low levels of response to contact tracing calls and asked that Hoosiers assist with the process that could help prevent people with early, asymptomatic cases of the virus from spreading it to others.
Aspy said the county’s COVID-19 situation at the moment is more severe than in past months. The community has seen two additional deaths from the virus in the past week, and school corporations that were meeting entirely in person have shifted to hold some classes online. Aspy said 75 students and staff members at county schools tested positive for COVID-19 over the past week.
Hancock County is currently considered to be in the “orange zone” by the Indiana State Department of Health, indicating a moderate to high level of community spread. Aspy said she does not expect that status, which is evaluated by the state on a weekly basis, to improve.
“We will probably stay in orange this week,” she said.
Seventy-eight counties are in the orange zone this week. Statewide on Tuesday, 5,541 new COVID-19 cases were reported, raising that total to 262,207. The state also added 84 fatalities, bringing the death toll to 4,770. Another 42,264 administered tests contributed to the state’s total of more than 3.6 million. Indiana’s seven-day positivity rate for all tests Nov. 4 through 11 is 12%, while the cumulative rate is 6.7%. Its seven-day positivity rate for unique individuals Nov. 4 through 11 is 23.2%, with a cumulative rate of 13.3%.