Gov. Brown announces testing, contact tracing plans

Gov. Kate Brown announced plans for testing and contact tracing in Oregon.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Friday announced the state’s plans for COVID-19 testing and contact tracing as part of her framework for reopening the state.

The state plans to add 600 contact tracers for COVID-19 outbreaks. Some positions will be paid while others will be volunteer. Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) will also create a team of medical students for contact tracing.

“A strategy of testing and tracing helps us identify who has the disease and who may be at risk of infection - knowledge that is incredibly powerful as we look to reopen," said Brown.

The governor said this is key to containing the virus, and preventing it from spreading quickly and widely. Contact tracers will be bilingual and multi-cultural to help communities of color and tribal communities who are particularly vulnerable to this virus.

In the press conference Friday morning, Gov. Brown said Oregon's strategy for re-opening focuses on testing and tracing to diagnose those who are sick as well as isolating the virus. The state's strategy includes the following:

Testing should be available for any Oregonian showing symptoms of coronavirus. If they are displaying known signs, they should be able to get tested.
Testing must be available for people in vulnerable living settings, such as nursing homes and prisons.
We need ongoing widespread randomized testing to know where the disease may be hiding in our state and monitor at-risk populations, such as communities of color and tribal communities.
To accomplish the first two objectives, Brown said Oregon needs to have the right kind of testing everywhere in the state. To that extent, leaders of each hospital system in Oregon have agreed to a unified approach for managing testing across the state.

The Oregon Health Authority updated its guidance to expand testing capacity. If a provider learns someone has mild symptoms, they are advised to give that person a coronavirus test. OHA initially took a cautious approach to testing focused on vulnerable populations and those most at-risk. State health officer Dr. Dean Sidelinger says he is confident the state can meet its goal of 15,000 tests per week.

[xxHeidenRxx]

As doctors and nurses are doing choreographed dance routines on Tik Tok in empty hospitals (look it up), we're being told that we can't go back to work by multi-millionaire Democrats who live in palatial estates with private gyms, swimming pools and movie theaters. This is a massive power grab and nothing more.

[guevaratherapeutics]

Contact tracing to flatten curve? Clinics are shutting down in Oregon, nurses and doctors are being let go because there aren't enough patients. I think we've flatten the curve enough... this about a huge power grab.

[threeofive]

I have no idea how contact tracing can be done. The disease can be contracted through counter tops and handrails in public buildings, not to mention from a sneeze from a stranger on a sidewalk. It is different than a STD.

[Cornfed_Off-road]

How do these contract tracer people know who to contact with out violating the 4th amendment?

[jrjr]

And they have defeated THE DRAGON/BEAST EMPIRE by the blood of the Lamb
    and by THE WORD OF their testimony.
And they did not love their lives so much
    that they were afraid to die.

[ksvoiceoveractingandmore]

i’m not excited bout this when i do lettts go