The Teton County Health Department’s Case Investigation and Contact Tracing Team will begin using a contracted service through the Wyoming Department of Health to assist with contact tracing efforts in Teton County, Wyoming.
In the past two weeks, there have been 539 new cases of COVID-19 in the county, overwhelming the current capacity of the local team. The department explains that when there are multiple day delays in investigating cases, it creates further delays in the process such as notifying close contacts.
The department’s Investigation and Contact Tracing Team is now working with the contracted team in this this process. During Friday’s update to the community, Teton County Public Health Officer Dr. Travis Riddell said it is believed that there are more cases of the new, more contagious variant in Jackson Hole than what have been identified. As such, he says, anyone identified as being infected with COVID should assume it is the more contagious strain and immediately quarantine.
Riddell said, “This variant case seems to have been acquired locally, so we can conclude that there are other cases in the community due to this variant. But due to our really limited capacity to sequence, we really have no way of knowing unfortunately how widespread this variant is compared to other strains. Preliminary data from the UK suggests it’s 50 to 75% more transmissible.”
Still, Dr. Riddell pointed out that all the preventative things we have been talking about all along, work with this variant as well.
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