Dallas County contact tracers focused on schools

DALLAS - A former nurse is one of those helping with the tough task of tracing the contacts of infected people.

Over the course of the pandemic, many retired medical professionals have stepped up to offer their knowledge and skills to help combat the coronavirus.

Vickie Yeatts is one of those people. She is a retired school nurse who worked in the Garland Independent School District.

She’s now one of a couple hundred people working as a contact tracer for Dallas County.

The new team is focused on schools in the county – public, private, charter schools, colleges and daycares.

Contact tracers function something like detectives. If a student, teacher or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, the people they’ve come into contact with are alerted so they can take the necessary precautions.

Yeatts recently made contact with someone over the phone who she suspected had COVID-19.

“And as the conversation continued, I did mention to her that I thought she sounded breathless and maybe having some shortness of breath and difficulty breathing,” she said. “My recommendation was that if it got any worse or didn’t get any better that I thought she needed to get medical help.”

Yeatts said the woman she’d been talking to did indeed end up in the hospital, was treated for the coronavirus and was released close to a week later. She’s expected to be okay.

That initial phone call is a reminder of the value of contact tracing in helping slow the spread of COVID-19 and helping those who may need it to get early treatment.

Yeatts’ team members include some other retired nurses and retired physicians as well.

A big part of what they’re doing is not just investigation but education as well.