States Nearly Doubled Plans For Contact Tracers Since NPR Surveyed Them 10 Days Ago

Note: This story was originally published on April 28. We've updated it throughout to reflect updates and new data from several states.

In late April, NPR surveyed all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to ask them about their contact tracing workforce. That survey showed that states had, or planned to have, around 36,000 workers in total focused on contact tracing, a key strategy to contain the spread of the coronavirus and prevent outbreaks.

In ten days since NPR first published the results of this survey, we've received responses from several more states; in addition some states with big populations announced new plans to increase contact tracing.

In all, 44 states and the District of Columbia now have plans to expand their contact tracing workforce, reaching a total of 66,197 workers — an increase by 30,000 of the number that were planned last week when we first published.

Public health leaders widely agree that communities need to ramp up their capacity to test, trace and isolate, in order to safely ease up on social distancing measures and allow people to get back to work.

The idea behind this public health strategy is simple: Keep the virus in check by having teams of public