Shannon Ernst, Churchill County’s Director of Social Services, spoke at the Fallon Rotary Club’s meeting yesterday about the county’s COVID-19 testing efforts and plans the county has to minimize the spread of the virus.
Ernst said that contact tracing relies on building relationships.
“We look to the community to put things together. NAS Fallon, the county, city, schools, and the tribe have come together to prepare for testing,” she said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, contact tracing is used by communities to prevent the spread of infectious disease. In general it involves identifying people who have been infected and the people who they have been in contact with, and working with them to interrupt disease spread, including asking people to isolate voluntarily.
Ernst explained that contact tracing helps look for trends or “hotspots” and by providing names, dates, times, and the kinds of interactions a patient is part of when testing positive, helps decide the severity of the case and assists in finding other people to test. She works closely with the positively tested patients, in order to build the relationships that help increase contact tracing.
“I call the patients directly after their positive test and run through the process of what needs to be done and what they need to do to self-quarantine safely. If they need food boxes, medications, or when to schedule their next test -- our health officers and the social services office help.”
Rotarians asked Ernst about testing strategies taking place currently, and future testing plans for emergencies or schools.
Ernst said that the summer youth program staff were testing ten percent of kids and deep cleaning areas currently but says surveillance testing may be a good idea if schools were to open this fall. She also mentioned that the community health board had looked into antibody and saliva tests. However, the antibody tests do not tell which kind of COVID strain a patient has, and the saliva form of testing is not provided by the state as of now.
“We get what the state gives us for testing. I will say that it changes often, and we changed to a less invasive swab three weeks ago,” Ernst said.
As for current testing programs, Ernst said that they conduct community tests every Tuesday at the Churchill County Fairgrounds and anyone wishing to test should call 775-423-6695, option 2 to schedule an appointment.
“Transmission has grown, especially people coming from Reno to here. But our goal is to have nothing be shut down again because it hurts the community’s economy,” Ernst said.
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