The article that BC posted is a more formal write-up on what's been known for some time. On March 17,
I quoted a report from March 13 that indicated presymptomatic transmission. As I recall, there were multiple articles at that time that indicated the same thing. The earliest report in BC's article is January, so it has probably been recognized since at least early February.
The Public Health Department for each county is the agency responsible for dealing with these things, but obviously they aren't budgeted or staffed with the people it takes to do this. I don't have any idea if there are any resources (people) at the county level that can be diverted to this.
Ok, bump it up to the state. Again, there's someone at the state that deals with public health issues, but again, they don't have the staff. At least at the state level, there is the National Guard that can be activated. I'm not sure they have enough manpower to do this. I believe Califronia's governor has mentioned the National Guard for purposes such as distributing food. I think the state (at least for California) probably has the budget and staff (normally assigned to a wide range of other duties (all of which are important): Child Protective Services, Driver's Licenses, ....) that could be tasked for this.
Bump it up another level to the federal level, and you've got a similar issue as the state. Everyone has important jobs to do. So, who do you call? What organizations have the manpower, the organization, the skills, to do this tracking at the county level?
I have suggested that census workers be retasked to this. They may be a drop in the bucket as far as manpower, but they are often locality-focused, probably are trained to deal with people, and their regular task, while important, is not time critical.
I also think the National Guard can contribute to this effort. I think the border patrol & ICE can be retasked. Perhaps some military troops can be deployed to do this, but they (and the National Guard) may be better used in other ways. IRS workers?
What about the other direction? Can any group at the city level be retasked? Police - maybe some if crime really has fallen off. I'm not sure what else.
What about a nationwide work force from the unemployed? There are literally millions of people that would probably love to have a paying job doing this. This is a WPA type effort. The bureaucracy required to set this up is mind-boggling, but it was done in the 1930s. There are issues about privacy that will be of concern. Unfortunately the potential for scammers to portray themselves as part of this workforce is tangible.
Whatever group of workers that do this, I hope they are tasked to work under the authority & responsibility of the various counties. Making a federal organization be in control seems to me to add a lot of heaviness at the top when you really want all the resources at the local levels. I'd rather it be a model like the National Guard working to support the counties' Public Health Departments.
Then there's the scale of this. Obviously NYC has to have a very large scale. Tuolomne County can probably get by without help (for now).
How to get appropriate staffing & pay for it? I don't know. One thought is for those who have recovered from the disease could be used to do interviewing of patients. An interesting thought is to encourage patients who aren't able to otherwise pay for their hospitalization to do this (but then, what if some don't agree? I wouldn't agree to withholding care, so that can't be the apple/stick)
That brings up another question (for another thread, not here). Hospitals are going to be burning money quickly. A lot of patients won't be able to pay (no insurance). Even if they do have insurance, do the insurance companies have the money for this (esp. with the stock market being much lower)? Will we see hospitals and/or insurance companies fail?
I still like a tech-based answer to getting much of the contact information, with little effort, and some loss of privacy (but each individual gets to make that choice, not have it handed down from some government entity). The so-called Singapore tracking app is one example.