Slow and Steady Won’t Win the Race to Contact Trace

Six months into the pandemic, state and local governments continue to fall behind on executing efficient, comprehensive contact tracing programs. These sluggish government initiatives are failing to contain the spread of Covid-19, leaving people unnecessarily vulnerable to the virus. Without a successful public strategy, businesses must pick up the slack and do their own in-house contact tracing if they want to protect both their workers and their bottom lines.

We see these issues right in our own backyard here at Proxfinity. Chicago only recently began ramping up hiring to put a contact tracing plan into action, despite announcing the initiative back in May. At a press conference, city health officials stated that only 100 contact tracers have been hired of the 600 the city plans to hire. Even then, a team of 600 would fall short of the 800 workers needed for Chicago to trace successfully, according to the Chicago Tribune’s reported estimates - and it’s unclear when they’ll hit that number. We’re watching the repercussions of these delays play out in our city in real time - schools are closed, case counts are increasing, and most businesses are struggling to safely operate. 

Chicago is just one example, and we can see the impact of fledgling efforts all over the world. For example, in the UK, a national contact tracing mobile app finally launched on September 24th, after the government promised its citizens one would launch back in May. The country has also struggled with execution of its manual contact tracing efforts. These delays may be partly responsible for the country’s recent spike in cases - the UK has seen a 91% increase in the last two weeks (as of September 23rd) - and shows how dangerous a lack of contact tracing can be. It’s so bad that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has re-implemented restrictions, including expanding mask mandates, tightening rules around public gatherings, and limiting hours of operation for certain businesses.

Even for the few local governments that already have robust contact tracing teams in place, very few are tracing successfully. In L.A. County, contact tracers could only reach 64% of known cases, and identified less than one contact from every two calls. As we discussed in last week’s blog, hard data is key to making smart decisions around fighting this virus. But, as L.A. shows, the governments that are contact tracing are still struggling to collect, share and analyze that hard data to make better decisions to keep people safe. If business leaders want to get the data needed to bring their employees back to work more quickly, or protect those who are already on-site, it’s imperative that they implement their own contact tracing programs as soon as possible.

So, how can organizations create their own contact tracing frameworks quickly and effectively? We asked ourselves that same question at Proxfinity back when the pandemic first hit, and watched the effects of Chicago’s slow response. We knew we had a proven technology that successfully tracked social interactions, and wanted to help businesses stay operational in whatever way we could. When we saw how the pandemic was unfolding in our own backyard, we knew we had to pivot our technology to help our community, and other communities around the world, better track and fight the virus. So, we introduced ResCUE, a wearable smart badge that tracks person-to-person interactions and provides real-time data and alerts that keep workplaces safe. In the few short months since then, we’ve expanded our operation to deploy thousands of badges to businesses across the country, and we’re not slowing down. Stop waiting on government solutions that may never come. Book a pilot today.

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