Tomorrow I have a story coming out about DIY contact tracing. A teacher found out his child had been exposed to COVID last Tuesday, his wife had symptoms the same day and he had them Wednesday. But it wasn't until today that anyone else was notified by public health. #COVID19BC

Instead this couple took it upon themselves to reach out to colleagues and contacts. It means one person who was potentially exposed and contagious went into isolation a full week earlier than they would have had they waited for contact tracers.

The teacher also asked on Tuesday— when his wife was syptomatic and they knew their kid had been exposed — if he should stay home Wednesday. He was told no, but opted to anyways. It wasn't until Wednesday evening he showed syptoms, but he is confirmed to have had COVID-19.

The couple is also not sure the school exposure notice would have gone out yet had they not been proactive about asking. It was only yesterday that public health asked her about *her* contacts and she made sure to tell them about her husband's.

There are other stories about this but essentially BCCDC guidelines are: You are only given contact tracing after you test positive. Not if you are sick and live with someone who has tested positive. They still will wait 2-4 days for those test results to come back

And even then, in this case, it was four days after she tested positive that contact tracing started.

Here's the thing though: As case counts go up, so do the demands on contact tracing.

One month ago there were 3 positive cases in Northern Health.

Today it was 48.

Assume, say, an average of 3 contacts per person. If there are three positives in a day, that's nine calls to potential contacts. I could do that in a morning.

If it's 48 cases a day that is 144 potential contacts. You need a team for that.

This couple is not speaking out because they think health officials are doing a bad job. It's because with so many new cases every day, they fear health officials and contact tracers are overwhelmed and falling behind. And that can mean bad things moving forward.

Anyways, story on tomorrow @daybreaknorth @ 7:10 Pacific. Stream live: http://cbc.ca/daybreaknorth/listen