Students walk in line for COVID-19 testing at Jesse Owens North Recreation Center. Contact tracers will contact those who test positive and those with whom they’ve interacted. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Assistant Photo Editor
Contact tracers hear a lot on the other end of their phones, from students admitting to throwing parties despite coughs to at-risk grandmothers grappling with testing positive for COVID-19.
Ohio State’s Case Investigation and Contact Tracing Team tracks the spread of the coronavirus on campus by identifying positive cases and individuals they may have exposed to the virus. Dr. Alison Norris, an associate professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health who oversees the contact tracing program, said contact tracing has two major components.
First, contact tracers reach out to all students, faculty and staff who test positive for COVID-19 and direct them to isolation housing. Next, they gather a history of that person’s interactions with others 48 hours before the onset of symptoms or, if asymptomatic, the date they got their test.
Using the provided interaction history, tracers determine the person’s “close contacts” and notify individuals who should be tested or enter quarantine housing. Norris said close contact is considered an interaction with someone not properly wearing a mask at a distance of less than 6 feet and that lasts more than 15 minutes. Intimate contact such as kissing or sharing utensils is considered close contact regardless of duration.
Some interactions are not considered exposure to the virus, Norris said. For example, passing an individual in a hallway is not considered close contact and would not prompt a call from the contact tracing team.
Norris said the contact tracing team aims to contact people within 24 hours of testing positive.
Lauren Hackenberg, a fourth-year in public health, was hired as a contact tracer by Columbus Public Health in August. Although she does not work for Ohio State’s Case Investigation and Contact Tracing Team, she said about half of the people she notifies are off-campus students.
Hackenberg said students are sometimes hesitant to share information about their interactions with other people, especially if they fear punishment from the university for gathering with more than 10 people.
“It is not my goal to have anyone suspended. I have no responsibility to report them. My only thing is that I want to keep them and the people they were with safe,” Hackenberg said.
Norris said the university will not discipline students who disclose their interactions with a contact tracer, even if they violated the guidelines of the Together As Buckeyes Pledge.
“We don’t want to punish people for telling the truth,” Norris said.
Hackenberg said her job is to call recently diagnosed people and instruct them to isolate. Depending on the individual’s reaction to their diagnosis, calls can last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half.
“Sometimes it takes a lot of time to calm someone down if [they’re] very, very upset or crying,” Hackenberg said.
Hackenberg said she recently spoke with an off-campus student who developed a cough. He later tested positive for COVID-19, but told Hackenberg that he threw a “rager” at his house after first feeling symptomatic because he knew he would soon have to isolate in his house.
Immediately after she spoke with that student, Hackenberg said she spoke with a 78-year-old woman with asthma who tested positive.
“She was hysterical. She had two twin grandchildren that were born in March that she has never met,” Hackenberg said.
Hackenberg said she keeps her phone on all the time to field questions or concerns from patients, some of whom call during her classes or in the middle of the night.
“The scariest is when they can’t breathe, they can’t get words out without wheezing. In that situation, if [they] can’t get more than a couple words out without having a raspy inhale, you have to call 911 for that person,” Hackenberg said.
Emma Hyden, a first-year in political science, said that she was visiting with a friend Aug. 21 who woke up the next morning with a fever.
“None of us really thought to quarantine ourselves just because we were feeling fine,” Hyden said.
Hyden’s friend tested positive for COVID-19 Aug. 24. The next day, she received a call from a contact tracer informing her that she would need to quarantine due to her exposure. She then received information about her quarantine housing assignment from the Office of Student Life.
Hyden tested positive for COVID-19 Aug. 27, two days into her quarantine at Lawrence Tower. She said that she received another call from the contact tracing team who said she needed to enter isolation housing. After explaining that she was already living in quarantine housing due to her initial exposure, the contact tracing team said she could remain in Lawrence Tower for her isolation period.
Hackenberg said that students will remain anonymous throughout the contact tracing process, and both she and Norris said compliance with the process — including answering calls and self-quarantining if necessary — is crucial to limit the spread of the virus.
“The main goal of everyone throughout this whole thing is to return to normalcy,” Hackenberg said.
