Buchanan County residents with COVID will have to trace their own contacts due to backlog, record-se

Buchanan County residents with COVID will have to trace their own contacts due to backlog, record-setting pace of new cases

Albany.

We now have as many contact tracers as we do residents.

Thanks for joining us i'm alan van zandt.

And if some of you out there are thinking this is good news -- think again.

The st.

Joseph health department can no longer keep up with the onslaught of new cases -- so we are now in charge of working our own cases.

Here's kq2's madeline mcclain to explain.

<<kq2's madeline mcclain reportingit's a result of our actions --the stress we put on the public health system fractured it.connie werner, st.

Joseph health department: "we just have to deal with the consequences as a community so that means that we are having to re-prioritize."up until this point the health department's contact tracers have been calling every person who tests positive, every single close contact, every single employer but they can't do it anymore.connie werner, st.

Joseph health department: "our health department staff have been working nonstop trying to do the absolute best that we can to keep up the cases are just outpacing our resources and it's now coming to the time that we are saying to the community, we need your help with this.

We need the community's help with this response."the st joseph health department says there's now too many calls to make.so from here on out -- they will call the positive case and their household.anyone outside of that tight circle is now your responsibility.connie werner, st.

Joseph health department: "it's unfortunately just due to necessity so you have a limited amount of staff and a certain amount of hours per day and every single day we get at least 80 cases if not more."in the last two weeks -- there has been 13-hundred positive cases by close contacts and you end up with thousands upon thousands of people.that doesn't even include the potential surge of new cases that result from people flouting cdc guidelines.connie werner, st.

Joseph health department: "it's certainly not what we want to do.

We want our cases to be so low that this that's not where we are right now and we anticipate that it will get worse before it gets better."

If you have been watching the increase in cases, hospitalizations deaths pleas from health departments across our area county..."everyone feels like they are drowning."livingston county..."we are weary, we are tired."andrew county..."we are overwhelmed."and buchanan county.you are probably not shocked about how we ended up here....connie werner, st.

Joseph health department: this is not a normal year.

Nothing about this year is normal.for those of us that want to help first make sure you are not part of the problem...connie werner, st.

Joseph health department: "i would ask a person that if they were to test positive right now and they look back to two days before how many people would they say that are honestly close contacts to them that might continue to spread this disease process and if they are not comfortable with the amount of be.

You might need to evaluate what choices they are and if you find out that you are positive, they ask that you stay home.

Isolate for 10 days starting from symptoms started or from the date that you received your test result.

Don't wait for a connie werner, st.

Joseph health need help.

We need the community's help and we need those guidelines.

We need them to say, 'hey you are a for that person to do their very best to follow that cdc quarantine themselves."

Madeline mcclain kq2 news.

The health department has a resource guide on its website to help you trace