Mayor Bill De Blasio: 1,000 Trained 'Disease Detectives' Will Track, Trace Coronavirus In NYC
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- New York City is putting together an elite corps of "disease detectives" to track and trace the coronavirus in the five boroughs.
Mayor Bill de Blasio says highly trained individuals will make up the "Test and Trace Corps."
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This month, 1,000 foot soldiers will hit the streets to test New Yorkers and trace their contacts.
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The Corps will double in number to 2,500 by June.
CORONAVIRUS: NY Health Dept. | NY Call 1-(888)-364-3065 | NYC Health Dept. | NYC Call 311, Text COVID to 692692 | NJ Health Dept. | NJ Call 1-(800)-222-1222 or 211, Text NJCOVID to 898211 | CT Health Dept. | CT Call 211
The city's public Health + Hospitals system will run the program, not the health department, which has done contact tracing for other diseases.
"It means eventually being able to trace, more and more, in our perfect world, every person who tests positive. We want to find everyone who is positive and then trace all of their close contacts. And then everyone who needs help, you got to provide the help and that's what we'll do," de Blasio said.
The mayor says the number of tests will increase from about 14,000 a day to 20,000 a day in two weeks.
