Omicron Variant Rampant, US Returns To Using Contact Tracking Apps

JAKARTA - Several states in the United States (US) have returned to using contact tracing applications for their citizens, as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has entered the country.

Health officials are working to slow down and better understand how the Omicron variant spreads, while scientists study how contagious it is and whether it could thwart vaccine implementation.

Contact tracing is a vital tool in the pandemic response, enabling health officials to notify people who had close contact with an infected person and slowing the progression of COVID-19.

"Contact tracing can give us information about how it's spread and hopefully break the chain of transmission to stop clusters and outbreaks, or at least delay them until we know more and understand what our next steps need to be," said a senior fellow at the Center for Health Security. Johns Hopkins, Crystal Watson.

Not long ago in the city of New York, USA, a man was immediately contacted by a health official who claimed to be infected with COVID-19 after taking a test. The man is said to have been infected after attending an anime conference at the Manhattan convention center last month with more than 50,000 people.

In fact, five other participants have also been infected with the coronavirus, although officials do not yet know whether it is an Omicron variant.

“Our testing and tracking team immediately worked with each affected individual to find out who else they had contact with. Contact tracing is really important," said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, as reported by Fox News, Sunday, December 5.

New York City also identified four other Omicron cases last Thursday, and a fifth case was found in Suffolk County east of Long Island. The new variant has been detected in several other states so far, including California, Colorado and Hawaii. It is known that New York itself was once the epicenter of a global pandemic, and contact tracing apps are often used in the city. The chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers, Marcus Plescia, said more contact tracing efforts were expected in the coming days.

"This is because of uncertainty about how effective vaccines and treatments such as monoclonal antibodies will be against Omicron," Plescia said.

Health officials will in the future reach the 36,500 convention attendees, vendors and exhibitors whose contact information they have, via email, text message, or phone call.

Amid the recent surge in Delta variants, health officials across the US have become overwhelmed and cut back on contact tracing operations. They are nearly impossible to keep up with the flood of new infections, administer vaccines and also do tracking at the same time.

Many health officials end up focusing on exposure in schools or potential super-spreader incidents where large numbers of people are at risk of exposure.