Smart Talk: Contact tracing hasn’t stopped COVID surge

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

 Steven Senne / AP Photo

A smartphone belonging to Drew Grande, 40, of Cranston, R.I., shows notes he made for contact tracing Wednesday, April 15, 2020. Grande began keeping a log on his phone at the beginning of April.

One of the keys to the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s strategy to slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus was to use contact tracing – identifying people who have come into contact with another person who had contracted the virus. That person would be asked who they had contact with and precautions or treatments would be advised.

However, the state has less than 1,700 contact tracers after setting a goal of hiring 4,500 last spring and many people contacted aren’t cooperating.

In the meantime, coronavirus cases are surging.

PennLive investigative reporter Wallace McKelvey recently wrote extensively about contact tracing and joins us on Thursday’s Smart Talk.

Lancaster author discusses his book on monuments to Confederate general and their influence today

Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest was a cavalry officer in the Confederate army during the Civil War, who became legendary in much of the South. He also was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan after the war.

Lancaster native Connor Towne O’Neill stumbled upon Forrest at a time when Confederate monuments were being removed because they were seen as symbols of a racist past.

O’Neill appears on Thursday’s Smart Talk to discuss how Forrest’s memory is still being felt today and his new book Down Along With That Devil’s Bones – A Reckoning with Monuments, memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy.