Wauwatosa Health Department Announces Changes to Contact Tracing

Karen Pilarski
Updated ·3 min read

WAUWATOSA, WI— The City of Wauwatosa is refocusing efforts to limit the spread of coronavirus the.

Wauwatosa has seen huge growth in the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus. In the past month, 411 new cases of COVID-19 were reported, compared with 183 cases in the previous month, according to a city website news alert.

The number of coronavirus cases for Wisconsin was 4,591 for Tuesday. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has restarted its daily coronavirus update dashboard after a weekend upgrade.

This recent surge in cases has exceeded the capacity of many local health departments in Wisconsin.

"The city currently needs to prioritize activities that will best limit the spread of the coronavirus in the community. This will allow city officials to focus on people who are at high risk of contracting or spreading the virus," the website said.

Even with increases to staff and state contact tracing teams, the number of people that need to be contacted has exceeded Wauwatosa Health Department’s capacity, the website said.

Wauwatosa is not stopping contact tracing, but are implementing crisis standards of practice for coronavirus contact tracing as suggested in a Sept. 15 memo from Ryan Westergaard, the Chief Medical Officer and State Epidemiologist for Communicable Diseases.

These changes are listed below, according to the website.


Schools:

  • School nurses/administration will be responsible for identifying and notifying all close contacts exposed in the school (including classrooms, recess, extracurriculars, sports, etc.) and provide instructions for quarantine.

  • The city of Wauwatosa will continue to provide return to work/school letters, as needed.

Team Sports and Youth Activities:

  • Coronavirus positive individuals will be directed to notify their coaches/organization leaders of their status and potential exposures on the team.

  • Team Sports and Youth Activities not sponsored by the school district will be responsible for identifying and notifying participants of exposure and instructions for quarantine if they are a close contact to a confirmed case.

  • These organizations may reach out to the city with any questions, but the city will not contact them with every team or youth activity exposure.

Workplaces:

  • Coronavirus positive individuals will be directed to notify their employer of their status and potential exposures in the workplace.

  • Businesses will be responsible for identifying and notifying employees of exposure and instructions for quarantine if they are a close contact to a confirmed case.

  • Businesses can reach out to the city with any questions, but staff will not contact them with a facility exposure.

Household:

  • Coronavirus positive individuals will be directed to notify their household contacts (family members and roommates) of their exposure.

  • The city will provide positive individuals with quarantine information that they can pass along to their household contacts.

"All other contact tracing efforts will remain the same at this time. For example, we will continue to follow up on all confirmed cases of COVID-19 at healthcare, long-term, and assisted living facilities. All Wauwatosa Health Department contact tracing efforts including those listed here are subject to change as the pandemic progresses," the alert said.

This article originally appeared on the Wauwatosa Patch