
Contact tracing can be very effective during the early or late parts of an outbreak, but when there is widespread outbreak, mitigation measures are more important according to Adm. Brett Giroir, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force.
��Yes, contact tracing is important,” Giroir said on NBC on Sunday, “but it’s much less important right now than the public policy mitigation measures.”
Contact tracing can be very effective, he said, during the very early parts of an outbreak.
“When you have a widespread, multi-focal outbreak, where many people are asymptomatic, testing and tracing are of limited utility versus public health policy measures,” Giroir said.
Once the virus is back to very low levels, he said, testing and contact tracing become much more important.
“Where we are right now, with the widespread, multi-focal, across many states, just like many other countries, the solution was the mitigation steps, not the contact tracing,” Giroir said.