Statewide Iowa — The governor says some state workers are being reassigned to work as pandemic investigators. Some Department of Human Services employees will help local public health agencies do “contact tracing” — tracking down people who’ve had contact with someone who’s tested positive for COVID-19.
Governor Reynolds says the state’s daily testing capacity will increase by three-thousand tests per day later this month.
(As above) “Our ability to provide more testing will allow us to capture more data about the virus and better understand its activity in Iowa,” Reynolds says. “The more we know about COVID-19, the better we can manage it until a vaccine is available.”
Reynolds says the State of Iowa also will be getting supplies for blood tests that tell if a person has had COVID-19 and recovered from it.
(As above) “That will be just an important factor in making informed decisions about how we target our response,” Reynolds says, “and again reopen the state of Iowa.”
Reynolds has not disclosed how many state employees will be reassigned to track down Iowans who may have been exposed to COVID-19 by someone who has the virus. The State of Massachusetts is spending 44 million on its contact tracing program and has hired a thousand people for the project.
