Thread by @BauerJournalism

Mayor Lori Lightfoot will talk about contact tracing in Chicago during a 1 p.m. press conference. I'll live tweet it.

Follow for updates and let me know if you have questions.

blockclubchicago.org/2020/05/26/cor…

You can watch here: pscp.tv/w/1LyxBNgBeXaxN

Lightfoot: "One of the most important weapons that we have in this fight is contact tracing, which is our ability to follow the path of this disease in order to learn where it's coming from, who's getting it and how it's spreading in our communities."

Lightfoot: "We know that we need to exponentially ramp up our contact tracing itself. And that's why I'm thrilled to announce a new, $56 million RFP to expand contact tracing in Chicago. Yes, $56 million. The RFP will be awarded to a single lead organization and 85% of the ...

"funds, which come from the cDC and IDPH, will be directed to support at least 30 organizations that are neighborhood-based or primarily support residents of the communities most impacted by COVID-19."
They'll recruit, hire and support at least 600 new contact tracers, ...

supervisors and referral coordinators across the city, all of whom will "ultimately be able to trace 4,500 new contacts per day when fully ramped up. Most of these jobs will last 18 months, and we are talking about good-paying jobs here with contact tracers making $20 per ...

"hour, supervisors making more and all with health benefits."
It opens today and runs through June 19 online: Chicago.gov/coronavirus.

Lightfoot: "While these efforts are focused on COVID-19, they are, in fact, the latest steps in our broader mission to close their community fault lines once and for all. That's why in addition to expanding contact tracing in these communities, this RFP will also provide earn ...

"and learn opportunities to promote career pathways and real, longterm growth for our community-based workforce ... . We need to leverage every opportunity we can to grow, build and recover in ways our city has never seen before and become the inclusive, equitable and ...

"supportive city we all know we can be."

Lightfoot: "We can't do it alone. This has to be an all hands on deck effort involving hospitals, federally qualified health systems and others ... ."

Lightfoot: "We can't be focused on building temporary scaffolding." We need permanent changes.

Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health: "We want to help people build skills that will ensure they can have longer, really, jobs that will let them build a career in health care and in public health ... . What we'll be doing, first of all, is the ...

"case investigation work. If folks are not very clear on case investigation, this is the work the health department does year-round, every day, and has for decades."

Arwady: "The Health Department has been doing this work from the beginning, but when we're still getting nearly 1,000 cases a day — two days over this three-day weekend, we had nearly 1,000 new cases per day — we've not been able to do the full extent of the case ...

"investigation and contact tracing. We've been building up capacity within the health department first; we're now pulling in people from other city departments, with appropriate training ... ."

Arwady: "It does not matter where someone lives in Chicago." They'll get the same speed and attention.

Dr. John Schneider from Howard Brown Health: Their staff has done contact tracing for HIV and STDs. They mobilized their staff to work on COVID-19. They've used the Latinx Student Association and volunteers to expand their workforce to 40 people.

Dr. Liz Davis from Rush University Medical Center: Contact tracing and other measures, like wearing masks, has helped them stop outbreaks in facilities.

Davis: A majority of the people they've tested in congregate settings have been people of color, showing how this work is important for racial equity.

Dr. Brenda Battle with U of C Medicine: We've stood up 10 additional testing sites by working alongside and providing technical support and more with partners on the South Side.

Battle: "As we increase testing, it's imperative that we begin identifying persons who have been in contact with individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19."

Battle: Health departments, not health systems, usually work on contact tracing, but, "We realize that in this unprecedented time, it's all hands on deck" and everyone should be involved.

Battle: U of C will begin contact tracing "in the very near future, focusing primarily on patients who have tested COVID-positive" at U of C Medicine and at federally qualified health systems on the South Side.

Lightfoot: We have a number of people that are already engaged in contact tracing. WE are taking city workers and repuporsing some of them that are available ... . I think our hope is to have this next tranche of folks identified and trained so they can begin in August."

Lightfoot: "We want this to be a career path for individuals to get the training and see there are other opportunities for them in health care."

Arwady: "The way we're really trying to think about this is meeting the needs ... that we have right now, but in a way that allows us to expand or contract depending on what happens with COVID over the next, really, two years."

Arwady: "We've already thought about other ways that we could use them or other ways we could expand."

Lightfoot: "The city's economy is open. ... We are adding to the resources that are already available at CDPH and expanding other people within CDPH and then layering onto that individuals who are coming from other city departments that are gonna be joining this team ... ."

Lightfoot: There's a training session even today.

Arwady: "There is no requirement for any particular training to be eligible to be hired" for contact tracing. "There will be extensive training, of course, as people are hired to ensure that they have the competency ... ."

Lightfoot: "The weekend of violence — and really it was Saturday and Monday — ... while I know there was a lot of energy and coordination among a variety of groups, what I said to the superintendent this morning is this was a fail and whatever the strategy was, it didn't ...

"work. So they're hard at work and looking at the data. ... We have to do better. We cannot have weekends in the summer turn into a bloodbath, and this weekend's violence was out of control. Clearly, whatever the strategy was, it didn't work."

Lightfoot: "The notion we somehow had less people on the street this weekend is fundamentally untrue."

Lightfoot: "This is probably one of the most difficult times for policing that we've experienced in the city. ... While we obviously do the year over year comparisons, we do our six-year rolling average, the reality is there's no circumstance like the one we are facing right ...

"now when it comes to public safety in recent memory. The only way we start to see and drive down the numbers ... is if all the other parts of the law enforcement ... if they come back online. We can't do this alone, solely with the resources of the Chicago Police Department.

"... What we experience every day in this city with gun violence is a public health crisis, and we have to treat it as such."

Lightfoot: "I can tell you, based upon the statistics we've been keeping for weeks, those dispersal areas are happening all over the city — and yes, in white areas, in Latinx areas, in moneyed areas of the city."

Lightfoot: "The reality is the Chicago Police Department is active and engaged all over the city and doing it with an eye toward equity, and I would have it no other way as mayor of this city."

Lightfoot on aggressive rats: "It's not my information that they've increased, but rodent abatement is always something that is top of mind for us, both through CDPH but also through Streets and Sanitation. ... With people staying at home ... you're creating more garbage. ...

"A. Recycle as much as you can. Compost as much as you can, but obviously get the compost off the ground ... . But we also need to make sure that we are securing our garbage cans, putting the garbage in the can, making sure you've got a fully functioning lid. Those are all the...

"things that are important. And we will continue to step up our enforcement."
Call 311 if you see a particular problem.

Lightfoot: "People out expressing their First Amendment rights is not the same thing as people gathering in the street partying and is obviously not the same thing as people in a church. ... We admonish them to adhere to social distance guidance as well as other public health ...

"guidance, like actually wearing masks. We can't force people to do that; we're certainly not gonna waste precious police resources arresting people who are expressing their First Amendment rights ... . Lumping everything together doesn't make sense ... . Regarding the ...

"churches, we're gonna keep trying to get them to comply, but if they don't we're gonna fine them" and take more aggressive actions. Pastors are basically "thumbing their nose" at the city and putting parishioners at risk.

Press conference over.

Story here: blockclubchicago.org/2020/05/26/chi…