Responding to the need to increase the capacity to trace any possible contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that federal employees are ready to make thousands of contact tracing calls a day, seven days a week.
During his Friday morning address outlining the latest federal pandemic measures, Trudeau said that the federal government has trained federal employees who can make 3,600 contact tracing calls a day, and in addition, Statistics Canada has trained another 1,700 interviewers who can make up to 20,000 calls a day.
The federal government is offering this help to all the provinces and territories to triage any backlogs or surges in demand for contact tracing. Trudeau said they are already helping Ontario and are ready to make calls for other jurisdictions at any time.
“We need to accelerate our ability to do contact tracing. After we've confirmed and isolated new cases, we have to get in touch with everyone who may have been exposed to the virus and make sure they take measures to quarantine and monitor themselves for symptoms or get tested,” Trudeau said.
The prime minister said that increased contact tracing is just one of the key benchmarks needed to be met in order to reopen safely. Testing capacity needs to be scaled up to quickly isolate new cases, so work is underway to procure reagents and swabs, and data collected needs to be quickly shared across provincial and territorial borders.
--with files from CTV News--