Grays Harbor County no longer providing contact counts

Grays Harbor County Public Health COVID-19 Incident Management Team (IMT) will no longer report the number of active and total close contact investigations. Contact tracing remains crucial to limiting the transmission of COVID-19 in our community. The IMT will still conduct contact tracing for all reported cases of COVID-19.

Case investigators will still be asking people who are positive with COVID-19 to provide their close contacts. A close contact is defined as being within 6 feet of a person who tested positive for COVID-19 for a duration of at least 15 minutes during their infectious period. These contacts will be contacted by case investigators, asked to quarantine, and monitored for the duration of their quarantine.

With the amount of COVID-19 cases that Grays Harbor County is currently experiencing, some cases have to be assigned to the Washington State Department of Health for investigation. When cases are assigned to the State, all contacts of those cases are also assigned to the State. While this partnership has been helpful to ensure that cases are investigated promptly, the current arrangement delays the accessibility of information to the local health jurisdictions.

This change in reporting will take effect today, December 9. For more information, please contact our bi-lingual call center at (360) 964-1850. They are open Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM. Grays Harbor COVID-19 updates, including current case counts, are available at healthygh.org.

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