Contact Tracing fades but needs exist for better public health work force in the future.

Here's one (more) sign the COVID-19 pandemic is on the decline in the United States.

NPR's latest survey of state health departments with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security finds many are winding down the contact tracing programs they scrambled to grow last year. More than half of the 36 health departments that responded to the survey in late May had fewer tracers than in December, and the vast majority isn't planning to hire more.

In a way, that makes sense. With coronavirus infections tapering off in most parts of the country, public health experts said a smaller workforce may be able to keep on top of current outbreaks.

But there are some big questions as these programs transition from full-throttle crisis mode to something new. Why, despite furious efforts to ramp up the workforce last year, was the U.S. not able to use testing and contact tracing to control the pandemic?

And how can the country be better positioned for the next public health emergency?

The Biden administration recently allocated $7.4 billion in funding to hire public health workers, potentially infusing the system with resources. Now state and local health departments, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have to figure out how to build on the success and learn from the failures of the past year.

"What's coming next — with all this funding from the federal government to scale up public health workforces — is really critical," said Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and collaborator with NPR on the contact tracing survey.

"It has to go beyond, how do we sustain this specific workforce very focused on contact tracing, to how do we make sure that we have the workforce we need to do better public health every day?" ...