HOUSTON — The White House is left with a lot of contract tracing to do after President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and aide Hope Hicks all all tested positive for COVID-19.
"It really underscores the importance of the behind the scenes work and contract tracing," Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health, said Friday.
Dr Umair Shah says it will be up to the contract tracers to identify those who might have been exposed.
These disease detectives will ask those that test positive to isolate to prevent further spread of COVID-19. They’ll find out who they've been in contact with and then let them know to get tested.
“It's about the individual especially if they have symptoms, the start of those symptoms and you try to go a couple of days prior to that,” he said. “We know some people can transmit pre-symptomatic before they actually have symptoms. one or two days prior to that they can actually transmit to others.”
In Harris County, there are currently have 262 contract tracers. Many of the contract tracers will ask simple questions to determine who might possibly be infected.
However, tracking is not easy since many people don’t remember who they were around and/or may not have their contact information.
Nonetheless Shah says it’s all vital information to help control the spread of the virus.
"Their actually critical to interrupting transmission in our community,” Shah said. “But most importantly, it helps us understand where in our community they are exposed or testing positive, so we can leverage our resources.”
In the meantime, all eyes will continue to watch the White House to see how widespread the infection is.