Suffolk virus probers include crossing guards, employment counselors

Suffolk has mobilized more than 600 county employees — including crossing guards and employment counselors — to investigate coronavirus cases, ratcheting up its public health response as reported new infections have risen to record levels.

Employees who normally coordinate land preservation deals, administer film permits and oversee arts grants are spending their workdays, or working overtime on nights and weekends, as case investigators, officials said.

In their new role, they reach out to people who recently tested positive for the virus, inform them of their results, identify their contacts and inquire about how they may have become infected.

The program has put Suffolk in a better position to handle a surge in cases than in March, when the pandemic began and there were only seven employees investigating new cases, county officials said.

The county was so overwhelmed then that it had to abandon contact tracing efforts, officials recalled.

With the new initiative, officials said, the county can boost the number of investigators to keep up with caseloads, even if they reach the levels of the spring, when a then-record 2,066 new cases were reported on April 7. The county exceeded that record last Thursday, with 2,194 new cases reported.

"The spring hit us with a tidal wave that just drowned us," said Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone’s chief of staff, Amy Keyes, who created the new program.

"This time around we're going to make absolutely sure that wasn't going to happen again," Keyes said.

Suffolk employees working as case investigators say the job can be stressful, particularly when they're delivering worrisome news and talking through peoples' fears.

Peggy DeKams, who normally works as a senior office assistant handling real estate acquisitions for the county, including for farmland preservation, was reassigned as a full-time case investigator in the spring and volunteered to stay on.

"People are frightened. People want to be reassured," DeKams of Kings Park said.

Also, "I think it's hard to get some people to understand they can't go out and nobody in their family can go out," DeKams said.

Janine Petrowski, who normally works as a labor department employment counselor helping people on public assistance find work, said she was "number one" to volunteer as a case investigator because she wanted to help.

Petrowski, who previously had volunteered to counsel patients waiting for HIV/AIDS testing results, said virus case investigators can provide "a kind voice on the phone" to seniors and others who may be isolated, or fear they will succumb to the virus.

"By the end of the call, you know they're just so much better," said Petrowski of Commack, who has worked as an investigator since last spring.

Officials call case investigation a vital tool in curbing the spread of the coronavirus, including by helping to identify virus clusters and new virus symptoms.

The process works like this:

• The state Department of Health dashboard notifies counties about residents who test positive for coronavirus.
• County investigators then reach out to patients to collect information about their activities and contacts in the days before they tested positive or symptoms occurred. They also provide guidance about quarantining and connect residents to services, such as food assistance.
• State contact tracers then reach out to the patients' contacts to tell them they may have been exposed to the virus and advise them to isolate or quarantine.

While all New York counties are responsible for case investigations, Suffolk stands out for shifting so many employees who don't normally work in health care into virus casework.

The Nassau County Health Department has 60 coronavirus case investigators, although all the department's 170 employees are trained to conduct investigations when needed, Nassau officials said.

New York City has expanded its health department resources by hiring a "Test & Trace Corps" of about 4,000 people to investigate coronavirus cases, monitor patients and trace contacts.

Suffolk’s case investigation initiative ramped up in early November, when the infection rate began to rise above 1% after Halloween gatherings, officials said. Average daily cases spiked from 95 in October to 423 in November, officials said.

The county at the time had a "skeleton crew" of about 20 case investigators who were "burned out," Keyes said.

Officials realized they needed more people to keep up with virus case numbers, Keyes said, and decided it would be faster and less expensive to use county employees than to hire and train new investigators.

As Suffolk has averaged more than 1,500 new daily cases in the first few days of 2021, about 270 county employees are working as case investigators full time.

Another 367 employees are continuing their regular duties, and working as case investigators at night and on weekends and holidays with county overtime incentives.

The investigator force includes employees from almost every Suffolk County department, including traffic violations, social services and labor, officials said.

Daniel Levler, president of the Association of Municipal Employees, Suffolk's largest public employee union, said workers were pulled from departments that were deemed less essential during the pandemic. Those in areas with soaring demand, such as food assistance, stayed in their roles.

"The pride here for us is when this crisis hit, our membership responded with, ‘Where do we need to be, what do we need to do? We serve the community,’ " Levler said.

Olga Morozova, a Stony Brook Medicine public health professor, said Suffolk County has done "very difficult and very important work to be able to mobilize 600 employees to do case investigations, especially under limited resources, competing priorities and a painfully evident fact that public health workforce is severely understaffed."

County officials said case investigators have reached 92% of new coronavirus patients successfully. Of those, 98% cooperated with probers.

About 45% of new patients reported having a close contact who already had tested positive, and the rest did not know how they were infected, Keyes said.

"We're playing a game of catch-up right now" with new infections so high, said Petrowski, who estimates she handles about 20 cases a day.

But "if you didn't get a call on Day One, we're gonna get you," she said. "We are getting to every single person."

Petrowski and other officials urged residents to answer their phones, even if the call is from an unknown number.

"All the information that they're giving us is as important as the information that we're giving to them," Petrowski said.

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By Rachelle Blidner

rachelle.blidner@newsday.com@rachelleblidner

Rachelle Blidner covers Suffolk County government, politics and breaking news.