Duke eliminated contact tracing this semester due to its decreased usefulness amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, according to Vice President for Administration Kyle Cavanaugh.
“[Contact tracing is] irrelevant because of the volume and speed of the incubation and recovery period for the Omicron variant,” Cavanaugh told faculty at the Jan. 20 Academic Council meeting.
As a result, some of the traditional public health practices, such as isolation duration and contact tracing, were modified in December, Cavanaugh wrote in an email to The Chronicle. He added that due to the variant’s short incubation period, most individuals will already be symptomatic before they can be identified and notified as a possible contact.
Cavanaugh stressed that students should continue “proper mask use,” closely monitor for symptoms and get tested if they show any.
“With the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community at this time, anyone who has had unmasked time around folks outside of their immediate households should assume they have been exposed,” Cavanaugh wrote.
In lieu of a contact tracing program, Duke has been focused on increasing testing availability, supporting those who are isolating and other preventative initiatives, such as Duke’s booster shot rollout, according to Cavanaugh.
Duke has reported over 700 weekly COVID-19 cases for four weeks in a row. From Jan. 24 to Jan. 30, there were 735 positive cases, with 646 cases among students and 89 among faculty and staff members. The positivity rate was 4.54%. As of Monday, Jan. 30, there were 509 active cases remaining.
Duke has mandated that all students and employees receive the COVID-19 booster shot by Feb. 15 or 28 days after becoming eligible under Center for Disease Control and Prevention and state guidelines.
With the onset of the Omicron variant, some of the traditional public health practices such as isolation duration and contact tracing were modified back in December.
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Milla Surjadi is a Trinity junior and a diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator of The Chronicle's 119th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 118.