Leon County Disease Detectives Track COVID-19 

This is the team of epidemiologists at the Leon County Department of Health working around the clock to reduce the reach of COVID-19.

They are disease detectives on the front lines: investigating the threat, tracking down cases, and identifying those who may have come into contact with an infected person. Their mission is not only containing the deadly virus in the greater Tallahassee area, but also to understand how we got to this point.

Labake Ajayi, Rebecca D’Alessio, Mathew DiFede, and Mary Levens are tested and trained in the field of public health with backgrounds in epidemiology, statistical analysis, and science. In early January, they were alerted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the presence of an unknown respiratory illness and an outbreak in Wuhan, China.  The guidance was to monitor CDC activity, as cases were being identified in a growing number of other locations internationally, including the United States.

They are putting all of their training to the test and collecting as much data on this novel illness as possible. They say they’ve always found infectious disease control work fascinating and interesting. This life-saving work fighting COVID-19 is especially challenging. It’s a new virus to science and the outbreak is happening so fast.  The team says you can’t overemphasize the point that we all need to take this seriously.

That’s why they strongly support the state and federal guidelines that are keeping people home and want others to do the same.

D’Alessio says, “people don’t believe that something as simple as washing hands and social distancing can stop such a big disease.” 

She adds, “the thing about public health is, if you don’t know about it, it worked.”

The small team is now getting support connecting the dots on COVID-19. The pandemic is requiring them to ramp up staffing as the number of positive cases grows. It's an all-hands-on-deck situation with volunteers, medical students, and internal staff transfers helping in the response.

It’s a tedious, time-consuming process mostly done by phone. This detective team will tell you, though, that this is important work to try to get those people who have been exposed to quarantine so they don't infect their families, friends, and the community in which they live.