A group of leading health experts on Monday sent a letter to Congress calling for $46.5 billion to expand contact tracing and isolation of infected people in order to safely reopen the economy.
“We are writing to propose Congress take swift action in upcoming legislation to give states the funding necessary to scale up our nation’s contact tracing ability and support voluntary self-isolation of infected and exposed individuals,” write the 16 health experts, which include former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Andy Slavitt. “This is fundamental to our ability to begin to reopen our economy while continuing to safeguard American lives.”
The letter asks for $12 billion to hire 180,000 new workers who would conduct contact tracing, meaning interviewing infected people to find out who they have been in contact with and then notifying those people so they can self-isolate for 14 days. The experts say this is important until a vaccine is developed.
While increased testing has been a focal point recently, the experts say that the contact tracing and isolation capacities are key steps as well, and capacity is currently well short of what is needed.