Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
States Building Up Contact Tracing Armies, But Experts Say It's Going To Take More Money, More People
To contain the spread of Covid-19, Alaska is planning to triple its number of contact tracers. Utah has retrained 150 state employees. And New York and other states are hiring thousands of people. And that, health experts say, might not be enough. (Joseph, 5/29)
A cell phone app to alert Alabama users if they’ve come in close contact with a person who tests positive for COVID-19 will not compromise users’ privacy, say the teams working on its development. The app is currently being developed by Birmingham-based tech company MotionMobs, in collaboration with the Alabama Department of Public Health and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It would notify users if they spent about 15 minutes or more within 6 feet of someone who later tested positive. (Pillion, 5/29)
Scientists looking for new ways to identify potential coronavirus outbreaks are turning their attention to what could be an early warning sign: the stuff you flush down the toilet. New studies increasingly show that the coronavirus's genetic code can be detected in the remnants of fecal matter that flows through sewers and into sewage facilities, either in raw wastewater or in what is euphemistically known as sludge. The genetic information represents such a good cross-section of a city or region that taking just a few samples can be the equivalent of testing millions of people in a given day. Using one method, just 14 samples could test the prevalence of the virus in all of New York City. (Wilson, 5/28)
