By Evan Bevins, The Inter-Mountain
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Climbing COVID-19 infections are prompting a change in the way West Virginia health officials conduct contact tracing, the state’s public health commissioner said Friday.
“West Virginia is experiencing high rates of community COVID transmissions and as a result it is putting strained resources on the health departments for contact tracing and case investigation,” Dr. Ayne Amjad said during Gov. Jim Justice’s online COVID-19 briefing. “Because of this we are going to start having our health departments only contact you if you’re COVID positive.”
Individuals who test positive and family members who live with them will be contacted, but no one outside those categories. Those who test positive should “notify your co-workers and anyone you’ve come into close contact with in the last few days,” Amjad said.
West Virginia had 19,397 active cases of the virus, according to Friday’s COVID-19 dashboard, with more than 2,000 cases added since Thursday. The daily percentage of positive tests was nearly 11 percent. An additional 18 deaths were attributed to the virus since Wednesday’s briefing…
To read more: https://www.theintermountain.com/news/local-news/2021/09/w-va-changes-guidelines-for-contact-tracing/
