El Paso’s contact-tracing effectiveness questioned by county commissioner

EL PASO, Texas — El Paso County Commissioner David Stout is frustrated over what he calls a lack of contact tracing being done by the El Paso Department of Public Health.

"I have received numerous reports from folks that have tested and come up
positive close to two weeks ago,” Stout said. “They have been contacted but no one has asked questions about who they have been in contact with. There's no contact tracing.”

Stout also said one his his staffers caught the virus and has not heard from the city's contact tracers.

"To this day it's been at least two weeks since he tested positive," Stout said. "He has not received a call or inquest about or asked about who he was in contact with when he was contagious."

El Paso health department spokeswoman Laura Cruz-Acosta says they are doing everything they can but are running into problems.

"Typically, we will try to get in touch with you within 24 hours after you
have tested positive,” she said. “We had initially started with seven contact tracers early on in the process. We are now close to 300.”

"What we have now started to do is issue quarantine health orders and we will actually go to the individuals house to issue the health order," Cruz-Acosta said.

If you don’t hear from a contact tracer, officials say you can call (915) 212-6520.