Who said that?

"We are in an age where people don’t listen to experts and where policy is divorced from expertise."

The director of the Palm Beach County health department made a startling public statement Tuesday: After Nov. 30, Florida will stop funding local efforts to trace new coronavirus infections.

“We want to keep the contact tracing effective. We want to maintain those people that we have,” Alina Alonso said at a local county commission meeting. “Definitely a big concern for the entire state.”

Contact tracing is a time-intensive investigative process used to get in touch with people who have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. It’s been held up by Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees as “a way that we actually stop the cycle of transmission.”

But Tuesday’s pronouncement from Alonso, the top health official in Florida’s third-largest county, raised questions about the future of the state’s contact tracing program — questions the state was not willing to fully answer.

When asked whether the state would keep funding local contact tracing efforts after Nov. 30, spokesman for the Florida Department of Emergency Management said officials will “work with” county health departments to make sure contact tracing efforts are funded. The spokesman, Jason Mahon, noted that local health funding comes from state, county and federal programs.

The Palm Beach County department of health did not immediately respond to an email and phone call asking for comment.

Read more at the Tampa Bay Times