Episode Details

Superintendent Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. What is contact tracing and how does it work when someone tests positive for COVID-19 in our schools? On this episode of the Supercast, we talk with Salt Lake County Health Department Epidemiologist Annie George, who explains the process of contact tracing and how parents can keep track of COVID-19 cases, data by using a COVID-19 Data Dashboard established by Salt Lake County Health. Annie, thanks very much for taking the time. Let's just start out by talking about contact tracing. Why is it important to do contact tracing to keep everyone safe in our schools?

Annie George:
That's an excellent question. The goal of contact tracing is to stop the spread of a disease. We actually use it for other diseases besides COVID. But the goal there is to let people know who have been exposed to the disease so they can take the appropriate precautions to hopefully contain the spread.

Superintendent Godfrey:
How does contact tracing work?

Annie George:
Specifically for COVID, we look at those who have been in close contact with an individual who's tested positive. We define close contact as within six feet of someone and then if the duration is for longer than 15 minutes. We also are putting in the caveat that this is with or without a mask. We get a lot of questions about that.

Superintendent Godfrey:
Why are we wearing masks if we still have to quarantine?

Annie George:
So, as a lot of studies that have come out recently have shown, not all masks are created equal. Some of them are more effective than others, depending on what they're made out of. And also, it requires the people to be wearing their masks correctly. I've seen as I've gone about out in the community lately, there are a lot of people that will just wear the masks over their mouths with their noses are sticking out. To kind of mitigate the risk there, we keep to that definition of within six feet for longer than 15 minutes.

Superintendent Godfrey:
I have a couple of follow-up questions on that. First of all, I've heard some confusion over time about whether those 15 minutes have to be consecutive or not.

Annie George:
Yes, that's generally the guidelines we use, if it's been consecutive.

Superintendent Godfrey:
So for the most part, it's 15 consecutive minutes, that's the threshold you're looking at to determine whether someone has really, truly been exposed to the Coronavirus or not.

Annie George:
Yes. There’re risk levels that we assign.  Anybody that's over the 15 minutes in a consecutive time block would be considered risk. If it's anything less than 15 minutes, it's considered a lower risk exposure.

Superintendent Godfrey:
My other question is about the masks themselves. You mentioned, of course, that all masks are not created equal, and also the way that masks are worn will vary from person to person. So, wearing the mask is still very important because it helps prevent the spread. But because you don't know exactly how the mask was worn, that doesn't eliminate the risk when you're doing contact tracing.

Annie George:
That's correct. We still very strongly encourage people to wear masks and to wear them correctly because it does help with the spread. So yes, we still do encourage that.

Superintendent Godfrey:
Besides wearing the mask over the mou