Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told Congress, in order to help combat the next wave of coronavirus, the country needs to hire contact tracers, The Hill reports.
Redfield told the House Appropriations Committee during a hearing Thursday he estimates between 30,000 and 100,000 contact tracers are needed by September.
Contact tracers interview people infected with coronavirus to find out who they have been in contact with so those people can be informed to quarantine to help stop the spread of the virus.
"It is fundamental that we have a fully operational contact tracing workforce that every single case, every single cluster, can do comprehensive contact tracing within 24 to 36 hours, 48 hours at the latest, get it completed, get it isolated, so that we can stay in containment mode as we get into the fall and winter of 2020," he said.
The numbers Redfield proposed are less than the 300,000 people that former CDC Director Tom Friden estimated the country needs.
Redfield said the tracers need to be put in place by September to stay ahead of when the second surge is anticipated to hit in the fall and winter.
"We really have to get this built and we have to get it built between now and September," Redfield said.
Redfield said the CDC has met with officials from all 50 states to discuss hiring contact tracers. He mentioned some states already have onboarded tracers.
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