State Health Commissioner Kris Box says information gathered by the state contact tracing call center remains private.
Employees at the center, which launched Monday, talk with COVID-19-positive Hoosiers to find out where they’ve been and with whom they’ve been in contact.
The call center has already contacted hundreds of people to trace the spread of COVID-19. And Box emphasizes that private information will never be shared in those tracing calls.
“We do not call an individual and say, ‘Hey, you were exposed to Mike Smith on Saturday at the wedding and we think you could have, you know, COVID-19,” Box says.
Box also notes cooperating with contact tracing is not mandatory – she says she can’t force people to tell her where they’ve been.
“Fortunately, we’ve not really run into that problem because Hoosiers all across our state want to protect the people that they care about, the people that they love," Box says. "They don’t want to infect someone else.”
The state recommends self-isolation for 14 days when a person has been in contact with someone who’s tested positive for COVID-19.
Contact Brandon at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.
This is a rapidly evolving story, and we are working hard to bring you the most up-to-date information. However, we recommend checking the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Indiana State Department of Health for the most recent numbers of COVID-19 cases.