CHESAPEAKE, Va. — The Chesapeake Health Department is bracing for what could be a post-Thanksgiving coronavirus surge.
District Epidemiologist Lisa Engle said overworked and "overwhelmed" contact tracers are now prioritizing which cases to pursue.
“Our numbers increased drastically and it was pre-Thanksgiving, so we were seeing it before and so we expect it to go higher," she said.
“What happens when the contact tracers are overwhelmed? We have them just do high-risk contacts meaning: they’ll do the interview, tell them what to do, tell them what to tell their close contacts, but then they only go after the high-risk.”
"High-risk" meaning the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. So sometimes, it will be up to an infected person to track down who they’ve been in contact with and let them know.
“Sometimes they [contact tracers] do have to minimize and get the person who is infected to tell their own contacts," Engle said. "That does happen.”
Engle explained any surge in coronavirus cases from Thanksgiving could happen within the next two weeks because although the average person develops symptoms within three to five days, you can develop symptoms up to two weeks after the initial infection.
“There’s a difference between the range and the average. The range that you could get sick from this is two to 14 [days],” she said.
So if you went out of town to visit family or friends over the Thanksgiving holiday, Engle has some advice for you: quarantine and get tested.
According to guidelines from the Centers For Disease Control, you need to get tested about three to five days after traveling, which is usually when symptoms start to appear. But if you decide you don’t want to get a test or you don’t have access to one, you should quarantine.
“If you don’t get tested, you need to quarantine for 14 days," Engle said. "Especially if you went to a high-risk situation.”
"High-risk," in this instance, means a state or country where cases are on the rise, or if you went to a large gathering with limited social distancing and limited face masks.
Engle said even if you test negative, you should still keep to yourself for about a week. If you test positive, you need to isolate for 10 days.
Amid concerns over testing shortages, Engle said the real issue is the backlog in testing.
“I’m not sure there’s testing shortages as much as a demand for providers to do it," Engle said. "And we see that when we have really bad flu seasons, also, where the providers just can’t keep up with seeing everyone that wants a test, and that’s probably going to happen after this holiday."
With cases rising across Hampton Roads, Engle said people need to continue to wear masks and social distance when possible.
“If the store is crowded or the business is crowded and you feel it’s going to be less than six feet you’re in, then I would not go," she said.