OSWEGO COUNTY – The New York State Department of Health has deployed several trained specialists to reach out to people who may have been a contact to someone who tested positive for the disease COVID-19. People in Oswego County who receive a phone call with the caller ID “NYS Contact Tracing” (518-387-9993) are asked to accept the call.
All information shared is private and confidential.
Contact tracing is a core disease prevention tool used by public health for decades to help control the spread of communicable disease and is a key strategy in stopping the spread of COVID-19.
In contact tracing, public health staff work with a patient to help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact during the timeframe while they may have been infectious. Public health staff then warn those exposed individuals or “contacts” of their potential exposure as rapidly and as sensitively as possible.
“Because COVID-19 can be transmitted without symptoms, notifying people about a possible exposure is critical to stopping the spread,” said Jiancheng Huang, Oswego County Public Health Director. “We ask anyone who gets a call from NYS Contact Tracing to please answer the phone and follow the directions of the contact tracer.”
The program is a partnership between New York State and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Vital Strategies. It is designed to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and make it safer to begin to return to normal again.
Huang said contact tracers will connect contacts with support and resources they need during quarantine.
“If you are contacted, a COVID contact tracer will connect you with the support and resources you may need through quarantine, such as help getting groceries or household supplies, childcare, or medical care,” said Huang.
“By staying home during this time, if you become sick yourself, you have not infected many others along the way. This is how we stop the spread,” said Huang.
For additional information, visit https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/new-york-state-contact-tracing or call the Oswego County Health Department COVID-19 hotline at 315-349-3330 Monday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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