The Rock County Public Health Department is implementing crisis standards of practice for contact tracing.
Health Officer Marie-Noel Sandoval says this is in response to the county’s growing number of COVID-19 cases.
Over the month of September, 933 new COVID-19 cases were reported to the Rock County Health Department. And the number of active cases in Rock County increased from 221 to 616.
Even with increases to staff and state contact tracing teams, the number of people that need to be contacted has exceeded Rock County’s capacity.
Sandoval says the pandemic has reached a level in Rock County that has forced us to begin to implement crisis standards of practice as suggested by Dr. Ryan Westergaard, Chief Medical Officer and State Epidemiologist for Communicable Diseases.
Westergaard released a memo on September 15th, in which he provides recommendations to establish the ideal standard for disease investigations and contact tracing.
