Legislative Memo: COVID-19 Contact Tracers

Contact tracers are considered an essential ingredient for re-opening the State following New York on Pause. But contact tracing will only be effective if individuals who are diagnosed with COVID-19 are willing to share their contacts and if their contacts are willing to act on the information the contact tracers provide. Both sides of this transaction require community trust. S.8362-A (Serrano)/A.10447-A (Joyner) takes important steps to build this trust by requiring that all contact tracers hired within New York City after its effective date represent the cultural and linguistic diversity of the communities they serve and by requiring annual reporting on contact tracer diversity. The NYCLU supports this legislation and urges that it be expanded to cover all contact tracers hired statewide.