State Partnering to Slow COVID and Provide New Tools to the Community

NC DHHS recently announced that they have formed the Carolina Community Tracing Collaborative, a new partnership with Community Care of North Carolina and the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers to expand contact tracing.  According to the state, “Contact tracing is the process of supporting patients and notifying contacts of exposure in order to stop chains of transmission.  Our local health departments are North Carolina’s experts in this essential detective work. The new Collaborative will hire and train staff that will support local health departments’ contact tracing efforts.  This will allow North Carolina to meet the goal of doubling the number of contact tracers in the state to 500.”  Contact tracer recruitment is going on now.  Interested applicants can visit the Collaborative’s webpage [communitycarenc.org].   Note that special consideration will be given to those who are unemployed, have community engagement experience and live in the communities that they will serve. 

New Digital Tools

In tandem with the addition of 500 new contact tracers, two new tools have also been created by NC DHHS to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in our state:

Check My Symptoms (www.ncdhhs.gov/symptoms),apublic website that allows people to enter their symptoms and determine if they should get tested for COVID-19. If they are recommended to be tested, they will receive a link to a list of nearby testing sites via email or text.  Note: The symptom checker is an informational tool to help people determine if they may need to be tested; however, it is not a physician order. Testing sites may require their own screening.   

Find My Testing Place (www.ncdhhs.gov/TestingPlace), a public website that allows people to input their county or ZIP code and access a list of nearby testing site locations online. 

Toolkit

A new promotional Toolkit is now online to help spread the word about COVID-19 and the new COVID-19 Community Team.  The toolkit provides accurate information and resources to those in the community.  The toolkit includes: 

• Flyers about getting tested for COVID-19 and using the Check My Symptoms online tool. 
• A flyer reminding people to practice the 3Ws of prevention: Wear. Wait. Wash. 
• Sample Facebook and Twitter posts with images for you to share on social media. 
• COMING SOON: An infographic explaining the COVID-19 Community Team and the contact tracing process. 

You can find the toolkit resources at covid19.ncdhhs.gov/preventandprotect.