Should the CDC award grants for testing and contact tracing of COVID-19?
Bill Summary
This bill authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to award grants for testing, contact tracing, monitoring, and other activities to address COVID-19. Entities such as federally qualified health centers, nonprofit organizations, and certain hospitals and schools are eligible to receive such grants. In awarding the grants, the CDC shall prioritize applicants that (1) operate in hot spots and medically underserved communities, and (2) agree to hire individuals from the communities where grant activities occur. This bill does not make testing or quarantine mandatory.
Sponsor: Rep. Rush, Bobby L. (Democrat, Illinois, District 1)
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Opponents say
• "...In conclusion, while tracing is not a new idea or action, one of the problems with this contract tracing program is that it is only helpful very early in an epidemic or pandemic. At the stage we are at in the U.S., it is almost useless because we are so far into it and so many people have already been exposed to the virus. As shown by the Stanford University Santa Clara County study and the numbers reported by Bakersfield clinics, much of the population here already have antibodies. But Congress wants to spend an additional $100 billion for this program, creating a huge surveillance system and overreaching program not based on science, and many people disagree with offering money to individuals and groups who agree to monitor their neighbors. The bill is vague about what the outcomes would be for people who have been exposed."
Source: Valley News
• "Most likely the proposed greatly expanded contact tracing program will be used to prevent a return to normalcy anytime soon. What’s needed is a nonpartisan, cost-benefit analysis of the current state shutdowns. Such an analysis would reveal that the negative outcomes of these shutdowns on the physical and mental health of Americans and on the American economy dwarf the negative outcomes from coronavirus infections of lifting the shutdowns." Source: The John Birch Society
• "Most likely the proposed greatly expanded contact tracing program will be used to prevent a return to normalcy anytime soon. What’s needed is a nonpartisan, cost-benefit analysis of the current state shutdowns. Such an analysis would reveal that the negative outcomes of these shutdowns on the physical and mental health of Americans and on the American economy dwarf the negative outcomes from coronavirus infections of lifting the shutdowns." Source: The John Birch Society
Proponents say
• "The COVID-19 TRACE Act will allow us to do this by creating a $100 billion dollar grant program for local organizations to hire, train, and pay individuals and to purchase supplies to run mobile testing units and door-to-door outreach as is safe and necessary, with special preference being given to those operating in hot spots and medically underserved communities, as well as those entities who commit to hiring from these neighborhoods."
Source: Rep. Rush, Bobby L (Democrat, -Illinois, District 1)
• "case-based intervention approach … will be impossible to achieve for COVID-19 without a new national initiative that combines a massive expansion of rapid diagnostic tests in every community with unprecedented growth in a public health workforce and adoption of new technologies dedicated to case identification and contact tracing in each state...In order to trace all contacts, safely isolate the sick, and quarantine those exposed, we estimate that our public health workforce needs to add approximately 100,000 (paid or volunteer) contact tracers to assist with this large-scale effort." Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
• "The TRACE Act proposes awarding grant money to health care entities to expand coronavirus testing and contact tracing. Testing is not mandatory, and contact tracing would serve to alert people who might have been in contact with someone infected with the coronavirus." Source: USA TODAY
• "case-based intervention approach … will be impossible to achieve for COVID-19 without a new national initiative that combines a massive expansion of rapid diagnostic tests in every community with unprecedented growth in a public health workforce and adoption of new technologies dedicated to case identification and contact tracing in each state...In order to trace all contacts, safely isolate the sick, and quarantine those exposed, we estimate that our public health workforce needs to add approximately 100,000 (paid or volunteer) contact tracers to assist with this large-scale effort." Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
• "The TRACE Act proposes awarding grant money to health care entities to expand coronavirus testing and contact tracing. Testing is not mandatory, and contact tracing would serve to alert people who might have been in contact with someone infected with the coronavirus." Source: USA TODAY
- Case Investigation and Contact Tracing: Part of a Multipronged Approach to Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic (CDC)
- Covid-19 — The Law and Limits of Quarantine (NEJM)
- A National Plan to Enable Comprehensive COVID-19 Case Finding and Contact Tracing in the US (Center for Health Security)
- False claim: H.R. 6666 bill allows strangers to enter your house, test you for COVID-19 and take family members into quarantine
- Does HR 6666 Authorize Removing COVID-19 Patients from Their Homes? (Snopes)
- Fact check: Bill Gates did not craft contact tracing bill (USA Today)
