Contact tracing is the process
of interviewing people with COVID-19
to determine who they have been in contact with
during their incubation period and their infectious period.
This is to determine who they may have
potentially spread the virus to,
as well as who they may have got the virus from.
A risk assessment occurs for each case.
The people determined to be at risk
are advised by health authorities
to go into quarantine if it is less than 14 days
from their last exposure to the case.
Some people may be advised to have a test
to see if they have COVID-19.
In South Australia this process is undertaken
by public health officers, nurses, and doctors
from the Communicable Disease Control Branch of SA Health.
Contact tracing is really important
as it means that we identify people who could potentially
become unwell with COVID-19
and spread the infection further.
By asking these people to stay home for 14 days,
we help limit the spread in the community.
It also helps us identify new cases.
CDCB has been engaged in a lot of active case finding
where we do more investigative work in special circumstances
to find out if anyone else has been unwell.
By proactively identifying people who are cases
and getting them tested,
we are able to further limit the spread of the disease.
- Contact tracing begins with a notification to CDCB.
We work closely with SA Pathology
and interstate laboratories
to ensure we are told about any COVID-positive cases
as soon as they have been processed.
Contact tracing is time-critical for it to be beneficial,
so we try to contact someone within a few hours
of finding out they are positive, if not immediately.
A public health officer or nurse will speak with them
to find out about their illness and when it began,
identifying the days they would have been infectious.
We then collect a day-by-day history in great detail
of everything that person has done.
Some interviews can take well over an hour
to get sufficient information.
It's vital that we get accurate information from each case
to enable further contact tracing.
The public health officer or nurse
will then discuss the findings from the interview
with a public health doctor or senior public health officer
and together a risk assessment will be made.
Through this process, the team members will decide
who needs to be contacted,
including those who need to be quarantined,
and other situations where we require more information.
A team of public health officers then phones each person
and provides some health information
specific to their circumstance,
and in a lot of cases, will direct them to quarantine
for 14 days since their exposure.
We encourage an active participation of cases
in the contact tracing process.
For example, letting their family and friends know
to expect our call.
However, we always treat each case
with a high level of sensitivity
and try our best to keep their identity confidential
when speaking with their contacts.
Each close contact receives a letter
with information about the process.
They also receive a daily SMS or phone call
to find out if they've developed any symptoms,
meaning we are able to detect new cases rapidly
by arranging testing as soon as possible
if any contacts become unwell.
A close contact is defined as someone
who spends more than 15 minutes
of face-to-face contact within 1.5 meters
while the person was infectious with COVID-19.
However, this is a very black and white rule
and doesn't always reflect real life.
Other considerations are of cases of being with others
in a closed room, such as a meeting room,
for over two hours, or two rows in front of or behind
an infectious case on an airplane.
Sometimes there are no clear rules
on who is or is not a close contact,
and we rely on the expertise of our public health
and infectious disease specialist doctors
to assist with making these decisions
on a case by case basis to ensure all possible contacts
are traced and informed.
- Contact tracing is one of the most important tools we have
in the fight against COVID-19.
In South Australia, nearly a third of COVID-19 cases
have been a close contact of a confirmed case.
For most of these cases, we would have identified them
through the contact tracing process and identified them
as needing to isolate to stop further spread.
Without contact tracing, these people may not have known
they were contacts of a case,
how long to stay isolated for,
or even anything about COVID-19,
and could have unknowingly
continued to spread COVID-19 in the community.
- The new contact tracing app, COVIDSafe,
will help the health system identify COVID-19 cases
and know who they have been in contact with
to enable an easy contact tracing process.
The app helps find close contacts of COVID-19 cases.
This will help us quickly contact people
who may have been exposed to COVID-19.
The app speeds up the current manual process
of finding people who have been in close contact
with someone with COVID-19.
This means you'll be contacted more quickly
if you're at risk.
This reduces the chances of you passing on the virus
to your family, friends, and other people in the community.
CDCB can only access app information
if someone tests positive and agrees to their information
in their phone being uploaded.
We can only use the app information to help alert those
who may need to quarantine or get tested.
The more people that download the app,
the more effective it will be in our fight against COVID-19.