NEW YORK (AP) — New York City has leaned into its $600 million tracing initiative even as coronavirus contact tracing programs across the U.S. have scaled back their ambitions. The nation’s most populous city hired more tracers as cases surged during the holiday season, and kept trying to reach at least 90% of people who tested positive. This month it met that goal for the first time since about Thanksgiving. There’s some debate among public health experts over whether local governments should cut back on contact tracing and focus more on vaccination. But New York officials say it’s all the more necessary now as vaccination campaigns race to outpace the spread of worrisome viral variants.
