Be sure to answer the call to quarantine

ALBANY, Ga. – The Department of Public Health has been contact tracing for months. Making calls out to people who they suspect may have been exposed to someone with COVID -19. These calls are done to encourage people who might have been exposed to quarantine for 14 days.

“These phone calls are aimed only at trying to keep our community healthy,” says Dr. Charles Ruis, District Health Director, Southwest Health District.

And since some students are back in the classroom and athletes are back in the gym, Ruis says they’ve seen a spike in contact tracing calls.

Unfortunately,  people just aren’t answering the call to quarantine.

“Sometimes people don’t answer the phone and we’re pretty confident that in some cases people just don’t recognize the number and without them answering the phone, in most cases, we don’t have anyway to reach them. They may become sick and if they do become sick it’ll usually be within 14 days.”

Quarantining helps slow the spread of COVID-19 and currently, in the 14-county Southwest Public Health District, contact tracers are making 100-120 calls a day to people who should consider quarantining to monitor their symptoms. After asking certain questions about living arrangements and people in households, contact tracers are able to advise people on the proper procedure.

“Some of the questions that are asked may seem a little bit personal but in order to do our job to fight this virus we need to work together and try to ensure that sick people stay home and that people who’ve been exposed stay home.”

Because contact tracers all call from different numbers, there isn’t actually a way to know that the department of public health is trying to call, so if your phone rings, be sure to pick up.