THE STATE’S CONTACT tracing effort is ramping up again in the midst of a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.
The program was scheduled to shut down in September but instead the contract with the operator, the nonprofit Cambridge-based Partners in Health, is being extended through the end of the year. The number of contract tracers, currently at 130, is also being increased by as much as 300.
The extension is another sign the COVID crisis is not going away. In recent days, the number of new cases in Massachusetts has risen sharply. New daily cases were in the double digits through most of June and early July and then hit triple digits in mid-July. On Monday, the Baker administration reported 2,054 new cases (presumably for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday), 883 on Tuesday, and 962 on Wednesday.
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About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
Partners in Health works with local boards of health across the state to track down those who have been infected with the coronavirus and those they have come in contact with in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. The state’s contract with the operation has repeatedly been extended and the size of the workforce has expanded and shrunk in tune with the virus through much of 2020 and 2021.
The number of employees reached 1,300 during the surge of cases in the spring of 2020 and then fell back to around 550 during the summer before expanding again in the fall. A spokesman for the Baker administration issued a statement saying the headcount of the operation had risen to 1,300 in March 2021.
The statement said the operation’s contract with the state “will be extended through the end of the calendar year and will make staffing adjustments accordingly in response to demand.”
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