South Carolina giving up on some COVID-19 contact tracing efforts

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s health department says it is giving up on trying to contact trace each individual coronavirus case in the state.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control said Thursday that it was switching from a “containment” to a “mitigation” approach. That means contact tracers will focus on household contacts exposed to the virus in the past six days and people in places where a lot of spread is possible.

People should no longer expect to get a call from contact tracers if they are exposed to a case, the department said.

State Epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell warned in July, during the state’s last spike, that tracing the contacts of everyone infected would be virtually impossible after newly diagnosed cases top 1,000 a day, a milestone long surpassed in the state.

Contact tracers discuss challenges during COVID-19 Contact tracers discuss challenges during COVID-19

Earlier Thursday, the agency said it would now allow medical students, retired nurses and other qualified professionals to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to make sure the state has enough people trained to administer the shots once the vaccine becomes more widely available.

The state is currently receiving about 64,000 doses from the federal government weekly, officials said. The limited number of available doses has frustrated South Carolinians as the state opened up vaccine access to those 70 and older this week, leading to a rush for shots. Some hospitals ran out of vaccine spots for seniors just hours after they opened up appointments.

Cox Media Group