A communicable disease is spread from one person to another through a variety of ways, such as contact with blood and bodily fluids; breathing in an airborne virus; or by being bitten by an insect. Public health works in cooperation with local doctors, hospitals and laboratories, to identify communicable diseases.
Once notified of certain communicable diseases, public health will start a case investigation by calling people to determine how they may have been exposed and who the person was in contact with. This is the basis of "contact tracing," and it is done regularly by public health for measles, sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis --to name a few.
We will attempt to reach you based on the contact information supplied to us by your medical provider or the information you submitted at the drive-through testing site.
If you have tested positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed and your information has been reported to Tarrant County Public Health you will receive the following message:
“This is an important message, please listen carefully. Tarrant County Public Health is trying to reach you to get information about your health. Tell us how to connect with you.
• Select 1 for completing an online survey, go to www.tarrantcountytx.gov/casesurvey
• Select 2 for receiving a call from a contact tracer
• Select 3 for Placing a call to the hotline at 817-248-6299 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday
• Select 4 for None of the above.
A slightly modified version is sent out via text. The phone and text message continue to be sent to you every hour until either you select one of the choices or the system has tried four times to reach you and you have not responded to any of the attempts.
Simply pressing 1 through 4 on your keypad, or texting 1 through 4 back to us will get the messages to stop before all four contact cycles have been completed. It also lets us know your preferred method of communication. If you select an online survey or a call to the hotline and then we don’t hear from you, your case will be referred to a contact tracer for follow up.
The information contact tracers receive is meant to help the individuals involved, as well as to protect those they live with and the community, in general. Once information is received, by law, only health officials with proper credentials can access it.
For people diagnosed with COVID-19
Be ready to provide the following information:
We’ll call your contacts and let them know they have been exposed so they can get tested, but not tell them your name. Your information will remain confidential. Contact tracers will never:
Contact tracers may:
If you are uncomfortable in answering a question, you can decline to answer a question, but still can participate in completing the case or contact interview.
The Tarrant County Health Alert Network allows public health to quickly share information about urgent public health incidents affecting the county. You can join this network by visiting this website and choosing which topics that interest you and how you want to be alerted. When those topics are updated, you will receive an alert notice by the method you have selected.
Current topics you can select include:
County Telephone Operator 817-884-1111
Tarrant County provides the information contained in this web site as a public service. Every effort is made to ensure that information provided is correct. However, in any case where legal reliance on information contained in these pages is required, the official records of Tarrant County should be consulted. Tarrant County is not responsible for the content of, nor endorses any site which has a link from the Tarrant County web site.
100 E. Weatherford, Fort Worth, Texas 76196
Copyright 2001-2025 Tarrant County, TX