GREENSBORO, N.C. — Despite hospitalizations and daily case counts trending down over the last day, contact tracers and case investigators said they're not noticing a fluctuation in their workload to mirror that.
For seven straight days, North Carolina COVID-19 hospitalizations were on the downward trend. Tuesday's update showed a slight increase in hospitalizations.
Since Friday, daily case counts have also taken a plunge. It's not unusual as past trends indicate, but Tuesday's update showed daily cases at 3,978, the first time less than 4,000 daily cases have been reported since the end of December.
Even though data is trending down, case investigators and contact tracers said they're still bogged down by the caseload coming in.
"It's really difficult for us to see a difference at all," said Guilford County Case Investigator Morgan Sawyer, "There’s still a huge number of positive cases, a huge number of contacts that people are reporting to us."
Sawyer said in talking with some of the people who have tested positive for COVID-19, she's learned half of the time people say they stay home a lot, while the other half say they've gone out to multiple places.
"If people don’t really have a known exposure, a lot of times they say, 'I went to the grocery store. I went to the gas station. I went to this restaurant,' it really could be any of those," she said, "Almost anywhere you go in public outside your house, you’re putting yourself at risk most of the time."
Over time, the number of cases coming in has forced case investigators to prioritize their work, according to Sawyer.
"A decent amount of people are still asymptomatic, especially younger folks. But, with the older population, sometimes they’ll tell you, 'I have a severe cough. I have a fever, a really high fever. I've had it for days now,' and we really do try to check up on those people that we're afraid might have to extend isolation or get in touch with a doctor or their physician to make sure everything’s going alright," said Sawyer, "But usually it has to be a very selective process to who do I have time to follow up with and who do I think would most benefit from me checking up again."
The state is tackling a majority of the contact tracing and case investigating for health departments to allow them to focus on rolling out the vaccine.
Forsyth County Health Department Coordinator of Health Services Lakecia Owens said that's been a major help.
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"Because we have the state providing that contact investigation for us, that does allow to go out and provide services from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and vaccinate 1,000 people a day," said Owens.
Owens said the decline in trends is a small victory, and she hopes that decline keeps going as they continue rolling out the vaccine.
"The more people who come out to receive the vaccine, the better chances of that community spread being reduced significantly," she said.
The Carolina Community Tracing Collaborative said 50 percent of staff are bilingual contact tracers and case investigators to help with cases, which has been especially helpful since COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Hispanic community.