ABOUT THE POSITION

Are you ready to make a difference in the community combating the spread of COVID-19?

You will be responsible for investigating and monitoring known or potential sources of suspected infections of COVID-19 or other diseases, determining original source, ensuring infection control, and assisting in the reduction of transmission.  Join the team that is making a positive impact every day. 

ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Come work for Maricopa County Department of Public Health, the 3rd largest health jurisdiction in the U.S.!  Our Public Health staff live by our mission: to make healthy lives possible!

We aim to serve Maricopa County residents with a focus towards health equity and a data-driven approach to our work. We value our staff’s unique skills and differences, as well as the varied experiences and disciplines we represent. We come together to reach our vision of creating a healthy, safe and thriving community.

We recognize your time is valuable, so please apply if you meet the following required qualifications:
 
Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Health Promotion, Public Health, Medical Technology, Health Sciences or health related field.

Combined education and experience qualifications

• An equivalent combination of post-secondary education and/or experience conducting health field investigations, community outreach, and/or case management may substitute for the education requirement on a year per year basis.

Our Preferred Candidate has

• Experience working with various socioeconomic groups.

• Bilingual English/Spanish skills.

• All employees, within one (1) month of hire, will be required to provide evidence of immunity or receive immunizations for vaccine-preventable illnesses for any position within the Maricopa County Department of Public Health. 

Essential Job Tasks

• Performs investigations to determine disease origin method of contraction through contact with physicians, hospitals, and healthcare providers.

• Interviews patients to obtain epidemiological information and determine contacts; may include conducting home visits and refer patients to medical provider for diagnosis, treatment, and care.

• Maintains case documentation of patient and family encounters.

• Collects specimens, submits samples for laboratory testing, and conducts laboratory procedures and testing.

• Tracks and locates patients or contacts throughout Maricopa County who suffer from or were exposed to a communicable disease.

• Provides related information and education to clients, medical providers, community, and staff.

Typically successful candidates are hired at a salary rate, up to midpoint of the range, based on applicable experience, internal equity and budgetary allowances.

Apply Here

Last week the state health department set a goal of testing an additional 30,000 to 60,000 people over the next three weekends for the SARS CoV2 virus. The goal is to test between 10,000 and 20,000 people starting yesterday and also the next 2 Saturdays (May 9 and May 16). 

They said testing will take place at drive-thru and onsite locations across the state. The testing locations, hours and registration information can be found at azhealth.gov/testingblitz.

The supply of test kits and specimen transport media must have gotten a lot better in the last week in order to make a commitment like this. Up until now, the availability of testing kits has been an impediment to wider testing.

It sure will be interesting to see the surveillance data that comes out of the Saturday testing.  While I expect that it’ll result in an increase in cases- I bet it also finds a lower percent positive rate because lower risk people are being tested.  The ADHS Data Dashboard hasn’t been updated yet this am… but you can check back on the dashboard to see how that blitz thing worked out.

Also, remember that the chart that shows new hospitalizations per day is really the most important surveillance tool because it’s less dependent on ephemeral testing capacity.

Presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections and Transmission in a Skilled Nursing Facility

CONCLUSIONS: Rapid and widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was demonstrated in this skilled nursing facility. More than half of residents with positive test results were asymptomatic at the time of testing and most likely contributed to transmission. Infection-control strategies focused solely on symptomatic residents were not sufficient to prevent transmission after SARS-CoV-2 introduction into this facility.

The stay at home orders and other social distancing measures have been working to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases across the country (including in Arizona). But to be honest, ‘stay at home’ type orders aren’t sustainable over the long run because of the collateral damage that these interventions cause in the economy (especially among folks that work in the service sector).

A much more refined tool that has far fewer consequences for the economy is ‘contact tracing’. Over the longer term, case identification and contact tracing is the key to limiting the spread of COVID-19 (until we get a vaccine or reach herd-immunity). In a nutshell, contact tracing involves:

1) Quick and easy testing to identify folks that are infected with an agent (in this case SARS CoV2);

2) Quickly contacting that person and ensuring that they understand that they need to go into Isolation (and coaching them how);

3) Working with the infected person to identify their close contacts over the period in which they were communicable;

4) Finding those contacts and letting them know that they’re at risk for developing the disease; and

5) Helping the contacts to understand that they need to quarantine for a period of time to prevent the spread to others.

It’s a labor intensive process that will require lots of new public health staff, and those folks will need training.

Fortunately, new on-line training is now available. Today, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials announced they have developed on-demand training for entry-level COVID-19 contact tracers. The course, called Making Contact: A Training for COVID-19 Contact Tracers supports ongoing public health agency efforts to prepare new contact tracers for their work of helping identify COVID-19 positive cases and those with whom they have been in close contact.

Folks that take the initiative and complete the training on their own will be very good candidates to be hired by local public health agencies as contact tracers. Here’s a link to that training! 

The FDA launched its Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program last week which aims to move new treatments to patients as soon as possible while also measuring the safety and effectiveness of these programs. Clinical trials on 72 potential therapies are underway.

CDC posted a new website that has a variety of resources for state, tribal, local, and territorial health agencies to help them think through intervention relaxation criteria. Topics include infection prevention and control, laboratory capacity, community mitigation, financial resources, surveillance and data analytics, contact tracing, and communication materials. It includes resources from CDC, other federal agencies, the private sector, academia, and non-profit organizations.