COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s health department says it is giving up on trying to contact trace each individual coronavirus case in the state.
The Department of Health and Environmental Control said Thursday that it was switching from a “containment” to a “mitigation” approach. That means contact tracers will focus on household contacts exposed to the virus in the past six days and people in places where a lot of spread is possible.
People should no longer expect to get a call from contact tracers if they are exposed to a case, the department said.
State Epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell warned in July, during the state’s last spike, that tracing the contacts of everyone infected would be virtually impossible after newly diagnosed cases top 1,000 a day, a milestone long surpassed in the state.
Earlier Thursday, the agency said it would now allow medical students, retired nurses and other