With increased coronavirus outbreaks, hospitals and health departments say contact tracing — an essential part of controlling the pandemic's spread — will be more difficult, causing Pennsylvania to now shift the focus of those efforts to those diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last six days.

In an effort to bolster the state’s contact tracing efforts, health department officials are testing an “exposure-notification” app that would alert individuals after coming into close contact with a COVID-19-positive person.

The state health department unveiled a nearly $23 million federally funded contract with the Atlanta, Georgia-based staffing firm Insight Global to recruit and train remote 1,000 contract tracers in addition to the 654 currently monitoring the spread of the COVID-19 in Pennsylvania.