[ti:On the Ground with New York’s Contact Tracers] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]Joseph Ortiz walked to the home of a man who was tested COVID-19. [00:08.60]The test showed the man has the disease. [00:13.80]Ortiz was unsure what to expect during his visit. [00:20.16]The person had not answered telephone calls [00:23.76]from New York City's contact tracing program. [00:28.04]New York officials set up the program to keep the coronavirus from spreading. [00:34.44]The goal was to get new diagnosed people to identify others [00:40.08]they might have infected before the virus spreads further. [00:46.12]"You never know what you're going to get," Ortiz told The Associated Press. [00:52.60]He added that "sometimes you have people who are really appreciative... [00:58.68]they like that we're out here trying to end the pandemic." [01:04.40]Such is the work of what appears to be the biggest contact tracing effort [01:10.28]in any city in the United States. [01:13.88]New York has over 3,000 people making phone calls, [01:18.88]going door to door, and asking people about their health. [01:25.00]New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has called the effort an "amazing success." [01:31.80]The city says it is now meeting its goal of reaching about 90 percent [01:38.12]of all newly diagnosed people and completing interviews with 75 percent. [01:47.32]But in the program's first two months, more than 11,000 infected people [01:54.00]— 50 percent of new cases — did not give any names of others they might have exposed. [02:01.44]When people have identified contacts, tracers have done interviews with 6 in 10 of them. [02:09.64]That is below the target of New York officials. [02:14.76]Comparing U.S. state and city contact tracing programs is difficult [02:20.76]because they vary or differ widely in what they release. [02:25.92]However, some public health experts say the numbers that New York reports are looking good. [02:34.96]Program director Ted Long knows there is more work to do. [02:40.52]Long is a doctor and an official with the city-operated hospital system Health + Hospitals. [02:49.32]He estimates the tracers' efforts have prevented thousands of coronavirus cases [02:56.68]and helped keep new infections, hospitalizations and deaths at low levels. [03:05.32]Newly confirmed cases rose past 6,000 on some days in April; [03:11.84]they now average about 200 a day because of more testing. [03:19.40]"That's what tells me that what we are doing is working," Long said. [03:26.12]Contact tracing is an old, highly respected public health technique. [03:32.80]But the pandemic is testing it once again in many countries around the world. [03:41.60]The pain is hard for the U.S. city that has reported more deaths [03:46.80]from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, than any other. [03:54.52]Making calls from her home in East Harlem, tracer Maryama Diaw [03:59.84]says she tries to "be sensitive and...talk to the person as a human being." [04:06.96]Recently when a woman tested positive for the disease, Diaw said, [04:12.80]she put down her written questions and asked the woman "Are you doing OK?" [04:20.68]"We talked for a little bit, like person to person," said Diaw, a student in public health. [04:29.16]The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's director [04:34.20]has estimated the country will need 100,000 tracers. [04:39.48]By the end of July, the total was over 41,000. [04:44.92]That number is based on information collected by National Public Radio [04:50.48]and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. [04:55.20]As a nation, "we're not in a good place," said Lori Tremmel Freeman. [05:01.08]She is chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. [05:09.24]She added that New York City was doing well. [05:14.76]The city already had hundreds of people tracing other infectious diseases before the pandemic. [05:23.12]But COVID-19 took the work to a level they had never tried before, [05:29.32]said deputy health commissioner Demetre Daskalakis. [05:35.88]New York City appears to have the biggest city-level program. [05:40.76]By comparison, 2,600 tracers are covering nearly all of Los Angeles County in California. [05:51.56]Chicago says it has over 200 tracers now [05:56.16]and expects the number to grow to about 800 by the middle of September. [06:03.24]L.A. County health officials says their program is "going well." [06:07.88]It completes interviews with about 50 percent of all new cases [06:13.84]and with nearly 66 percent of all new contacts. [06:19.88]I'm Susan Shand. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM