Contact Tracing Programs of California and New York State: A Comparison and Evaluation

Abstract

The contact tracing programs for the COVID-19 pandemic of the states of California and New York are compared using a system of criteria developed by a group of scientists with Vital Services, a global public health organization that creates documents and guidelines that larger government bodies are meant to implicate into their own systems to have the most success possible in a public health crisis. Positive case data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and pieces of legislation passed in each state were analyzed in the lens of the criteria from the COVID-19 Contact Tracing Playbook provided by Vital Services. Findings showed that each state had certain strengths and weaknesses within the ten criteria used to measure the efficiencies of their contact tracing systems. In summation, the states of California and New York, as well as states and nations globally, could benefit from assessing their systems in this fashion in order to maintain high standards of public health throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.