Jessica Winegar, Grant County Health Department clinic manager, addresses the Grant County Court.

CANYON CITY — As the pandemic drags on, contact tracers with the Grant County Health Department say they are facing rising levels of uncooperative and abusive behavior.

Kimberly Lindsay, the county’s public health administrator, said during a meeting of the Grant County Court on Wednesday, Nov. 10, that contact tracers are increasingly on the receiving end of verbal tirades from people who are deliberately flouting pandemic protocols.

The goal of contact tracing is to limit the spread of COVID-19 by identifying people who may have been exposed to the disease and advising them on the need to get tested and possibly self-quarantine.

But with communities around the state and across the country growing increasingly weary of COVID-19, public health workers are facing an increasing level of vitriol.

Lindsay said the hostility level had driven one contact tracer to quit.

“It’s hard when you’re getting yelled at all the time,” Lindsay said, “or people make comments when you go into the grocery store and it’s like the Red Sea parting.”

One staffer, according to Lindsay, avoids going out in public due to the hostility.

Lindsay said quarantine impacts people and businesses, especially now that the dollars in programs to offset the loss of income are drying up. She said it is understandable that people are frustrated in that respect.

County Judge Scott Myers said on Friday, Nov. 12, that Lindsay emailed the county commissioners a “wish list to take to Salem” after the court session.

Lindsay asked the county to seek out state funding for wraparound services for people who test positive for the coronavirus and are asked to quarantine or have had close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19. The services could include assistance with rent, mortgage payments, utility bills or other basic needs.

Additionally, she asked the commissioners about funding for small businesses to offset losses they incur when they are forced to close due to employees or customers needing to quarantine.

Lastly, she asked if the court could lobby for support funding for compassion fatigue and burnout in health care workers.

Lindsay said there are consequences to the community when people do not cooperate with public health guidelines, such as becoming severely sick and being hospitalized.

“In addition to genuinely caring,” Lindsay said, “we are just doing our jobs.”

At last Wednesday’s county court session, Prairie City resident Frances Preston — a vocal critic of mask mandates and pandemic protocols — said some people are “mentally disturbed” in responding to the pandemic. But at the same time, she said,“fear-mongering” about the virus is also a factor.

Preston asked if the tracers could have access to counseling after being on the other end of a verbal tirade. She also asked if there were legal avenues the Health Department could take.

County Commissioner Sam Palmer told Preston that could run into medical privacy violations.

Lindsay said if the call became threatening, it would be a “game-changer.”

Some members of the audience sidestepped Lindsay’s concerns and peppered her and Health Department clinic manager Jessica Winegar with questions about natural immunity to the virus.

Someone asked about the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the county and how many of those who died were fully immunized. Winegar said 14 people had died from the virus and none were fully vaccinated. However, she said one person who died had been given the first dose of the vaccine.

County Judge Scott Myers asked if there was a hotline or support network of mental health providers for nursing staff.

Winegar said in addition to working with Community Counseling Solutions, she has reached out to a first responder support network and told them she needed help.

Additionally, she told the court she recently opened up on a call with state staff and made it her “personal counseling session.”

In addition to reaching out for support, Winegar said the staff had been doing team-building activities and taking afternoons off from time to time.

Winegar said she realizes taking the afternoons off can be challenging for those who need to get in touch with someone at the Health Department. However, if the department loses more staff, it risks finding itself in a much worse situation.

“It’s like a traumatic event that we’re doing every day.” Winegar said.

She said the staff is working to combat compassion fatigue. According to the National Institutes of Health, compassion fatigue is emotional and physical distress caused by treating and helping patients in need, desensitizing health care professionals leaving them with a lack of empathy for future patients.

Winegar said when people get angry about needing to quarantine due to being in close contact with someone with COVID-19, she explains that the health department is treating coronavirus like any other infectious disease. For instance, public health would quarantine them if the county were in the midst of a measles outbreak and they were not immunized against the disease.

She said she gives people the opportunity to vent and the, after a rough conversation, she will call Lindsay to vent herself.

Lindsay said she does the same.

“When I’m calling Jessica after getting called the F word about 53 times,” Lindsay said, “that’s like a counseling call for me to say, ‘All right, well, that didn’t go so well.’”

Preston suggested that Health Department staff hang up on people when they become nasty.

Lindsay said it would be one thing if people were civil when they told contact tracers that COVID-19 is a hoax and that they would not quarantine and that they were ending the call.

“While I might wish that the call had a different outcome,” Lindsay said, “that is very different than interrupting, being called bad words, bad words, over and over, and told you’re out to ruin their lives.”