Coronavirus: urgent race to trace cases in auto-message call out

Victoria’s contact tracing team will have to track down up to 9000 extra people who have crossed paths with newly recorded COVID-19 infections..

 

Victoria’s contact tracing team will have to track down up to 9000 extra people who have crossed paths with newly recorded COVID-19 infections, putting additional stress on an already-stressed public health workforce.

But the Victorian government has already admitted there would be delays in speaking to close contacts of COVID-19 cases and is using automated messages instead.

“The national guidelines say that, where feasible, everyone should get a phone call every day,” Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said.

“What does happen in Victoria is that everyone gets an automated message.”

The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services had just 57 people in the public health team in recent weeks, embarking on a significant hiring spree to recruit more than 1250 new staff as the number of infections grew.

Professor Sutton said that while training was provided for the new recruits, it was not possible for a specialised workforce to “manifest overnight”.

“They are training others to do similar work, but it’s not something where you can grab someone and give them a five minute rundown to do one of those detailed interviews,” he said.

“It’s a very skilled activity.”

“All positive cases are interviewed by the contact tracing team and every effort is made to speak to their close contacts as soon as possible,” a spokeswoman said.

“Due to the concentrated efforts in recent days, there have been some delays with this process and our team is working quickly to get hold of everyone.”

Federal Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said on Friday every infected person could spread coronavirus to up to 30 people they had come into contact with, meaning the 288 cases detected in Victoria that day could have spread to 8640 people.

“For every case that we see, and we’ve seen many in the last week, there are contacts that also need to be phoned, given advice, and also isolated for their own protection and the protection of the wider community,” Professor Kelly said.

“We know what we need to do and we are well prepared.”

About 200 clinic staff from other states had been mobilised to assist Victoria’s contract tracing effort earlier this week, including 80 from NSW, 40 from Queensland and 30 from South Australia.

The Australian on Wednesday reported two senior officials involved in the national pandemic response had warned there was a “systemic” problem with Victoria’s DHHS, which had been “depleted” of public health professionals.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Friday said the task facing the state’s contract tracers would be a “challenge”.

“It is a difficult, laborious, really challenging task,” he said. “I’m very grateful to everybody who has participated in that testing program and I would urge all Victorians to follow the rules, and if you have symptoms, even mild symptoms, please come forward and get tested.

“That gives us the most powerful tool, the sense of where the virus is, how it is moving and how it is we can best respond to it.”