TABLE. COVID-19 Case Investigation and Contact Tracing Program Challenges: Qualitative Responses from Health Agency Staff, November 2020 and April 2021.
Themes | Select Quotes From Respondentsa |
---|---|
Public acceptance | “Pandemic fatigue and concerns over sharing personal health information continue to plague 100% participation with our contact tracing process.” —November 2020 respondent “As the pandemic has gone into its second year, we have far fewer people thanking us for our work and more people ... frustrated and fatigued with our isolation and quarantine guidelines.” —April 2021 respondent |
Technology and data systems | “... our older systems have had to be modified and we are moving to a new system for case investigation to ensure we don't bog down the older system further.” —November 2020 respondent “Leveraging this very complex data set successfully, especially as it is not integrated with any of our surveillance systems, is a tremendous challenge.” —April 2021 respondent |
Long-term and sustainable funding | “All of us ... need longer-term, sustainable funding in order to recruit and hire state/local positions instead of trying to only redirect local/state staff or contract short-term assignments.” —November 2020 respondent “Without additional funds, we will not be able to sustain this [contact tracing] model for the long term.” —April 2021 respondent |
Workforce needs and staffing plans | “Because these positions are considered ‘temporary,’ turn-over can occur as people look for more stable employment.” —November 2020 respondent “At times we have had too many staff and during surges we did not have enough. [Predicting] future needs has been most challenging because as soon as we think we have our staffing plan figured out something new happens (variants, holiday surges, vaccines, college outbreaks, schools reopening).” —April 2021 respondent |
Program implementation in an evolving response | “With the rapidly increasing burden of new cases, all areas of infrastructure are now stretched, lacking computers, supervisors, and [quality assurance] oversight.” —November 2020 respondent “... with frequent guidance changes and unknowns (variant strains, case counts, breakthrough cases ...), it has been difficult to establish future planning and direction.” —April 2021 respondent |
aQuotes edited for length and clarity.