NYC To Hire 1K Contact Tracers For Reopening Effort: de Blasio

NEW YORK, NY — New York City is looking to hire 1,000 medical professionals to serve as contact tracers as the city works toward relaxing social distancing measures instituted to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.

Contact tracers hired by the city will interview people who test positive for the coronavirus to identity others who may need tests or to be quarantined, de Blasio said. When the city's number of coronavirus cases was rising exponentially, efforts were directed at containing the disease's spread and making sure city hospitals didn't become overwhelmed. Now that hospitals have a better grasp on the virus, the city has the opportunity to build out a contact tracing network, de Blasio said.

"That's what we're going to build in the month of May, a contact tracing network in this city like never been seen before on a vast scale," de Blasio said during a Monday press briefing. "So every time somebody tests positive immediately we can swing into action, figure out who were their close contacts, get those people tested too and isolate anyone who needs isolation."

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"If you have experience in the healthcare field, if you are willing to lend your talent to this fight we need you, and we need you right away. We are hiring immediately and will be hiring throughout the month of May," the mayor added.

In addition to hiring tracers, the city will be training workers from different municipal agencies to help with contact tracing, de Blasio said. Anyone interested in applying to become a contact tracer in New York City should go to the Fund for Public Health in New York City's website, the Mayor said.

As of Monday, the city has opened eight community testing centers in neighborhoods that have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, de Blasio said. The city will be able to test 10,000 per week at the centers moving forward, the Mayor said.

New testing equipment and procedures will allow the city to administer coronavirus tests more safely and quickly, the mayor announced Monday. Patients at the community testing centers will now be given self-swab tests that are less intrusive than the long nasal swabs previously used by healthcare workers. The self-swab tests allow workers to preserve personal protective equipment, because healthcare workers will no longer need to swab patients themselves.

"Everyone who has the nasopharyngeal culture done, the one up their nose almost always coughs or sneezes on the healthcare worker because it's so uncomfortable," Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, said Monday.

The city reported progress Monday on its key indicators to track the outbreak of coronavirus. Daily hospital admissions for suspected coronavirus cases dropped from 144 to 122 cases, the number of people in intensive care decreased from 768 to 766 and the percent of people testing positive stayed still at 29%, de Blasio said Monday.

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