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The latest news about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 in Montana.

Yellowstone County Trains School Staff To Help With Contact Tracing

The Yellowstone County health department is onboarding school staff to track down the close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19.
Mark Bonica
/
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The Yellowstone County health department is onboarding school staff to track down the close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19.

The Yellowstone County health department is on-boarding school staff to track down the close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19.

RiverStone Health says this week it trained roughly 100 staff members at several schools to assist with contact tracing efforts.

Positive cases of COVID-19 statewide have spiked since schools reopened in August, and RiverStone Health currently rates its case investigation capacity as red on a stoplight scale.

RiverStone Health Spokesperson Barbara Schneeman says the department currently has 43 people contact tracing, which is the equivalent of 21 full time contact tracers.

Billings Public Schools Superintendent Greg Upham says the newly deputized principals, nurses and administrative staff will now be able to reach out to contacts and quarantine individuals.

“RiverStone Health, public health, was spread too thin," said Upham. "And we have the ability to get to the classroom much quicker than they did, and so the whole idea of contact tracing and being able to keep the virus at bay is to do the contact tracing as quickly as possible and so, that allowed us to do that.”

RiverStone Health Spokesperson Barbara Schneeman says among the districts to receive training so far are Custer Public Schools, Elder Grove School District and Billings Catholic Schools.

Copyright 2020 Yellowstone Public Radio

Kayla Desroches reports for Yellowstone Public Radio in Billings. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and stayed in the city for college, where she hosted a radio show that featured serialized dramas like the Shadow and Suspense. In her pathway to full employment, she interned at WNYC in New York City and KTOO in Juneau, Alaska. She then spent a few years on the island of Kodiak, Alaska, where she transitioned from reporter to news director before moving to Montana.
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