Covid Patients Unable to Give Complete Info Among Challenges of Contact Tracing, Say Delhi Officials

Covid patients unable to give information about their contacts and activities that could have led them to contract the virus and people hiding details are some of the stumbling blocks for surveillance teams engaged in contact tracing, amid rising cases of the coronavirus and its variant Omicron here. Delhi on Thursday recorded 1,313 fresh Covid cases, the highest single-day spike since May 26, as the positivity rate mounted to 1.73 per cent. Of the 23 states and Union territories that have recorded Omicron cases so far, Maharashtra has registered the highest number of 450, followed by Delhi (320), Kerala (109) and Gujarat (97).

The Delhi government has put special impetus on the Test, Track and Treat’ strategy with a focus on surveillance, de-alienation of containment zones, isolation of positive cases and close monitoring of home isolation cases so as to break the chain of transmission. Working on the strategy, a number of surveillance teams, comprising officials from the health department, district administrations and civic bodies, have been pressed into contact tracing exercise across 11 districts of Delhi. According to officials engaged in the exercise, the most common problem they face is forgetfulness among people. They are unable to provide a proper account of their activities during the period they contracted the disease, the officials said. An official from the New Delhi district, on the condition of anonymity, said that contact tracing always depends on what a person is able to tell. “People have short memory. They have to share information about the people they came in contact within the last 14 days and it’s difficult for people to recall where they went during such a long time. They are only able to recollect where all they went in the last two-three days,” he said.

The official added that if any one who is infected with the virus had travelled by Delhi Metro then it is almost impossible to trace the people who had come in contact. “We have to trace at least 30 contacts of the person. But most of the time, the contact tracing remains limited to immediate family members, their office contacts and their neighbours,” he said. Another official of the West District said that sometimes people deliberately hide information and provide incomplete contact details. “In such cases it becomes difficult to trace each and every person they have come in contact with. Sometimes people don’t tell correctly what they did or whom they met in last one week at least. In that case we have to repeatedly ask them similar questions to extract correct details,” the official, who is engaged in contact tracing exercise, said, requesting anonymity.

The official added that in such cases authorities generally assume the Covid positive person must have come in contact with people living in the same locality so as a precautionary measure all neighbours and relatives are advised to observe home isolation for seven days. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has sounded the “yellow” alert under its Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) on Tuesday, after the Covid positivity rate was recorded above 0.5 per cent in the national capital for two consecutive days.

The DDMA in a meeting on Wednesday had decided to continue with the restrictions under yellow alert and remain in wait and watch mode before imposing any new restrictions. It has directed concerned authorities to intensify testing and tracking exercises to arrest the spread of the COVID-19 and its Omicron variant. Another official at the office of the Southeast District Magistrate said that since most of the people are asymptotic and given the fast spread capability of Omicron variant, immaculate contact tracing and testing becomes crucial in containment exercises. The official said that forgetfulness among Covid positive or suspected cases is a major issue in contact tracing. “If we ask COVID-19 positive persons which shops they visited in any particular market or whom they met, they are mostly unable to give these details accurately. They either don’t remember places or shops they visited or they simply give incomplete information. This makes the contact tracing difficult,’ the official lamented. Health Minister Satyendar Jain cautioned that the new coronavirus variant Omicron is gradually spreading in the community. The daily case count breached the 1,000-mark after a gap of seven months. On May 28, the city had logged 1,141 cases.

Seeing the jump in cases of the latest variant in Delhi, doctors had recently cautioned that people should avoid all gatherings and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour.

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