As they try to battle a surge in coronavirus cases that arrived quicker than they anticipated, Long Beach officials say they’re hurrying to rebuild a contact-tracing program that had been cut back in recent months.

At the height of the first coronavirus surge around April, Long Beach had 61 people working in the program. Right now, the city has only 39, according to the health department.

But as case rates have spiked to unprecedented levels, the current contact tracers are quickly becoming overwhelmed, said Emily Holman, Long Beach’s Communicable Disease Controller.

“The biggest burden right now is just the sheer number of cases,” she said. “When things are a little more calm we try to interview every positive case, but in a big surge it’s not always possible.”

And right now, the city is trying to ramp up contact tracing once again because it cut back the program in recent months while case rates were lower. During some weeks in September and October, for instance, the city reported fewer than 300 new infections.

Now, however, Long Beach said it’s seen a crush of more than a thousands cases since last week, and the extraordinarily high numbers are expected to continue thanks to the possibility of Thanksgiving gatherings spreading the virus.

“It’s definitely growing at a faster rate than the first surge,” Holman said. She said officials knew the renewed surge of COVID-19 infections was likely coming, but they weren’t expecting it to accelerate this fast.

In the past week, tracers have reached out to 3,300 contacts to chat with those who have tested positive and identify others who might be at risk.

Under the contact tracing program, city workers contact someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 to retrace their steps and determine others who may have come into contact with that person and may be infected.

Holman said the city is now looking to add more staff and retrain new staff in contact tracing. Most are city employees who were temporarily reassigned from other departments.

Those employees are assigned to ask questions of patients, including when their symptoms started, whether they’ve attended any gatherings or had any other recent close contacts with people. They’ll also give residents detailed information on quarantine time, symptom monitoring and other health issues. If they’re in need, they can be connected to other city resources like housing aid.

Contact tracers also investigate outbreaks at businesses that have had three or more cases.

Since the start of the pandemic, the city has reached out to roughly 13,000 residents, including positive cases and contacts of those who tested positive, Holman said.

Not all residents provide contacts when getting tested, and many are unwilling to answer questions, but the city encourages people to participate, Holman said.

While it won’t stop the surge, contact tracing is a useful tool that can help educate people and prevent more infections, she said, adding that there aren’t many other options for intervention currently.

“We have better treatments than we did six months ago, but until a vaccine is here, this really is it,” she said.