‘Diddy’ delivers, chicken coops, New Year’s Eve restrictions: News from around our 50 states From USA TODAY Network and wire reports, USA TODAY
Alabama
Gadsden: The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Alabama topped 2,800 this week, as recent days have shown a steady climb and new record high inpatient counts – 2,804 on Tuesday – as the surge in cases continues. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, the University of Alabama’s Division of Infectious Diseases director, said Alabama now is third in the nation in COVID-19 hospitalizations per capita, behind Nevada and Arizona. She said Alabama is sixth in the nation in the number of COVID-19 cases per capita, after falling out of the top 10. On Christmas Eve, the number hospitalized was 2,458 across the state; on Christmas Day and on Saturday, it was 2,516, according to statistics published by BamaTracker. On Sunday, the number rose to 2,631; and it jumped significantly by Monday, to 2,802 people hospitalized.
Alaska still deciding when groups will get COVID-19 vaccine sfgate.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sfgate.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Contact tracer Toni Parlanti of Stamford, Conn., calls a person identified as having been potentially exposed to the coronavirus this week. States and territories report they have more than 70,000 people working on contact tracing as of December. (John Moore/Getty Images)
It’s an incredibly difficult time to be a contact tracer in the United States. Just imagine having to call up a stranger a few days before Christmas to tell them they’ve been exposed to COVID-19 and need to quarantine for 14 days.
For public health workers tasked with making contact tracing calls, “these are very challenging conversations at any time, but the longer the pandemic continues, especially around the holidays, it’s difficult to ask folks to quarantine,” says Lindsey Mauldin, who oversees Pennsylvania’s contact tracing program.
John Moore / Getty Images
Originally published on December 23, 2020 5:57 pm
It s an incredibly difficult time to be a contact tracer in the United States. Just imagine having to call up a stranger a few days before Christmas to tell them they ve been exposed to COVID-19 and need to quarantine for 14 days.
For public health workers tasked with making contact tracing calls, these are very challenging conversations at any time, but the longer the pandemic continues, especially around the holidays, it s difficult to ask folks to quarantine, says Lindsey Mauldin, who oversees Pennsylvania s contact tracing program.
But those contact tracing calls must go on. In fact, according to NPR s most recent survey, contract tracing programs in many states have grown as agencies push to keep up with mushrooming case numbers.