NASHUA – Now considered a “red” community with the spike in COVID-19 cases, Nashua is conducting intensive contact tracing, tracking individuals who have tested positive for the coronavirus with other individuals with whom they have had contact.

Nashua epidemiologist Angela Consentino said the Nashua Health Department is doing extensive contact tracing with every new case that arises.

“We do in depth disease investigation and contact tracing,” she said. “We know per each case, who exactly the contacts are. Some are associated with outbreaks; some are associated with community spread transmission. It’s coming from all different places at this point.”

Consentino said the city is aware that there are more contacts per case, and that logically, the more contacts, the more illness in the long run.

“It’s people who are going to work,” she said. “It’s people who are playing sports, it’s everybody. We can’t pin-point one specific thing, but we’re all out in the community and we’re going about our regular activities and it’s causing more and more illness.”

Whether it’s out of boredom with being cooped-up indoors for several months, or a relaxed approach or grasp of the seriousness of the coronavirus and how it spreads, Nashua cases have risen to an alarming 115 active cases.

“Spring and summer came, and we saw a lull in cases,” Consentino said. “It was really nice to be able to go outside and relax a little bit. But now our numbers are going back up, and we really need for people to take this seriously again. We don’t want the numbers to go up any more than they have.”

Consentino said people need to change their behaviors, stay home whenever possible, and continue wearing masks.

“When people go to work with a cold, or they go see their elderly grandparents with a tickle in their throat, they’re exposing people who can get really sick,” she said. “People are having mild symptoms right now, or allergy-like symptoms, or cold-like symptoms, so they’re thinking it’s okay to go about their regular business.”

Mild symptoms can go unnoticed or unattended to, and that’s where Consentino said more people can get the disease.

“One person’s allergy symptoms can cause another person’s life threatening illness,” she stressed. “We really need people to stay home and be diligent.”

Considering the number of cases in Nashua is so high, Consentino said that will exponentially impact the number of individuals who have had contact with someone who tested positive. And those contact-traced individuals must now be traced to determine who they as well have been in contact with as well.

“Last week in Nashua, we had a hundred new cases,” she explained. “We had 214 new contacts. That’s the highest volume in one week that has been seen since May. So we still have all the contacts from all the previous cases who are under quarantine. The 214 is in addition to all of the contacts that we’re following from the previous weeks. It builds up on itself.”

The eight community health department nurses are fully dedicated to COVID-19. Now, the city is considering utilizing staff members from other departments, including the welfare department, the environmental health department and the community services department.

“We’re looking at using folks in those departments to provide support to community health,” Consentino said. “We’re looking at an ‘all hands on deck’ approach. That’s what we were doing in the spring, but now we’re going to have to all be working on COVID.”

Although many surmised that the seasonal change would present additional positive cases, Consentino said she’s concerned that it’s happening so soon, long before the cold weather sets in during the month of January.

“All of the models were projecting a low increase in the first weeks of October,” she stated. “As the epidemiologist, I wasn’t expecting this so early based on projections. But I think with everything reopening, people doing sports and restaurants going to 100 percent, it just opened up opportunity for infections, and that’s why we’re seeing so many new cases.”

As for small gatherings, Consentino did say that having family cohorts and creating a social “bubble” with close ones can be done safely.

“You have to be conscientious of who the people in your family are seeing,” she explained. “If one of your family members is engaging in high risk behaviors because they have to – if they’re a nurse or playing a high contact sport – then you might want to consider not having that person in your bubble, or asking them to stay home.”