Collin County Administrator Bill Bilyeu confirmed the state recently entered into a consulting contract to manage coronavirus cases and contact verifications. Up to 2,500 health care professionals were hired by the state to handle COVID-19 cases, he said.
Bilyeu said the state was expected to begin handling these cases May 6. But as of May 11, Denton County had still not received contact tracing support from the state, said Jennifer Rainey, a public information officer for Denton County.
The state’s reporting of COVID-19 cases will be secondary to contacting residents confirmed to have the virus, Bilyeu said. Collin County Judge Chris Hill said the county’s public health dashboard that has been reporting Collin County’s COVID-19 cases will likely be discontinued as a result.
“They will control all the data, all the numbers,” Hill said. “Our dashboards and our daily reports may be limited in what we get from them.”
But Rainey said Denton County will continue its COVID-19 statistics page and local reporting.
“We actually plan to add additional statistics to it within the next few days,” she said in an email.
Denton County Public Health is currently handling all positive cases reported to Denton County, Rainey said.
