New Report: Businesses Absorbing the Contact Tracing Fight

In recent weeks, the U.S. has been faced with a harsh reality—its fight against the coronavirus is far from over. As cases have skyrocketed once more, many government officials have started to reevaluate their reopening plans and determine if rollbacks are necessary. In fact, the U.S. continually hit new daily records for the number of new cases and is reaching the peak number of hospitalizations that it saw during the disease’s initial outbreak.

It’s a scary truth that it’s more critical than ever to do what we can to minimize its spread. That said, it hasn’t been an easy road. With health professionals learning about the disease in real-time as it spreads, what we learn and how to combat it changes daily. What’s more is that with the response left up to state and local governments, there are huge inconsistencies in protocols, with local and regional officials often coming into contention with one another. With so much confusion, the fight against the coronavirus has been steadily marching towards one eventuality—businesses must step up and do what’s in their power to compensate where government efforts fail.

But how? Contact tracing has been continually lauded as the go-to strategy for dampening the coronavirus’ reach, by alerting infected or potentially exposed people so they can limit further interaction with others. And now, more than ever, businesses and organizations are making it a priority. In a recent report by benefits provider Mercer, more than half of the companies they surveyed have already or plan to put their own contact tracing efforts in place, and it’s likely this number will continue to climb. It’s not only paramount to keeping employees safe, but it’s a necessary step to keep future shutdowns at arm’s length, and stay operational. 

The question then becomes, what’s the best way to do it. Looking back on this survey, many companies are looking to conduct it manually—training existing employees or hiring more. But this is a costly and time-intensive endeavor, pulling employees from their daily work, investing in training programs or simply hiring new staff means there are critical lag times in implementation and significant blows to already strained budgets. To put a finer point on it, contact tracers can demand up to $17-22 an hour, up to a $57,000 annual salary, and to put it into perspective at a national level—Congress could expect to spend a staggering $12B over the next 18 months on volunteer contact tracers. 

And that’s not all. According to Mercer’s findings, contact tracing combined with other workplace practices can reduce transmission by an overwhelming 85%. Face coverings and social distancing aside, proper cleaning procedures are key to keeping work environments safe, and identifying high-traffic areas to focus such efforts goes beyond the scope of what contact tracers will be able to do. In addition, aside from the misinformation they may receive by basing their conclusions off of interviewees’ memories, they stop at surface-level reporting. Meaning? It’s one-to-one, versus understanding second or even third-degree contact beyond one infected person.

Fortunately, there are other options, and as businesses take on this imperative cause, more reliable ones—such as wearables. At Proxfinity, we want to do our part to arm organizations with the technology they need to do effective, reliable and comprehensive contact tracing, and most importantly, to do it now. 

We’re doing our part, let us help you do yours.