For much of the past two years, Lim Hyeon-jeong and her 10 contact-tracing colleagues in the South Korean city of Daegu gave themselves a nickname: Zombies.
They skipped meals, power napped at their desks, and sprinted to any restaurant, bar or church that reported a Covid-19 case—at all hours. Any slip-up, Ms. Lim believed, could ignite a nationwide outbreak that could puncture South Korea's stellar record against the infectious disease.
Now Omicron is here and Ms. Lim—like contact tracers around the world—is doing less, despite confronting more cases than ever before.
Daegu now reports thousands of cases a day—more than it had combined during the first year and a half of the pandemic. Yet, Ms. Lim is no longer trying to halt outbreaks in their tracks by poring through security-camera footage, credit-card records and phone GPS records.
Instead, she tracks confirmed cases at nursing homes. She goes home at 6 p.m. most nights.
At her City Hall office, Ms. Lim sits at a desk beneath a banner that reads, "Daegu Omicron Response Headquarters." But she often finds herself wondering: "Can I really stop tracking these cases?"
South Korea is among the countries undergoing a major pivot in how they combat Covid-19. The old tactics no longer work as well at containing the more contagious Omicron variant. Health officials have pointed to relatively low levels of death and hospitalization, plus high vaccination rates, as grounds to accept larger outbreaks.
Singapore recently shifted mainly to automated detection for contact tracing that uses a Bluetooth tracking app to identify and send text messages to close contacts of Covid patients when outbreaks occur. The U.K. ended contact tracing this week, following moves to scale back in Denmark, Finland and parts of Germany. In the U.S., several states are reducing contact-tracing staff.
Contact tracers, who had until recently been on the front lines, feel the transition acutely. Tracking who, where and how the virus had spread would require a massive staffing boost to keep pace, health officials say, though such investment looks less necessary given Omicron's milder effects on much of the population.
The number of daily confirmed cases per million people in South Korea, Australia and Singapore now surpass that of the U.S. and U.K., according to Our World in Data.
"Contact tracing became nearly impossible due to Omicron," said Kim Dong-hyun, a professor of epidemiology at South Korea's Hallym University College of Medicine. "But countries have let their guard down without knowing whether another variant could emerge."
Rebecca Hundy, an Australian contact tracer, finds herself and her team spending more time providing health advice, after officials decided to stop tracking every case. Their limited investigations target high-risk areas, such as prisons or aged-care facilities. For most other Covid cases, location tracking is now done through online surveys sent in automated text messages.
"We've basically told people, 'You are almost doing contact tracing yourself in a way,'" said Ms. Hundy, who heads contact-tracing investigations in the Canberra region.
Emily Laurie, who lives in Melbourne, got Covid last month. Although a contact tracer called her after she failed to fill out an online survey, most of the questions probed her own health situation. "There wasn't anything about where I'd been or how many people I'd come in contact with," she said.
Few countries had bet bigger on contact tracing than South Korea. It employs about 500 full-time staffers nationally, though that number swelled during prior outbreaks from the added deployment of medical staff, city officials and military members. But the highly contagious Omicron overwhelmed what had been a calibrated approach to limiting outbreaks through widespread testing and case investigations. Most South Koreans with Covid now isolate themselves at home without ever communicating directly with health investigators.
Before the shift, South Korea's continuing restrictions had drawn criticism from business groups, citizens and even prominent members of South Korean President Moon Jae-in's ruling Democratic Party. Ahead of the presidential election next month, Lee Jae-myung, the ruling party's nominee, has called the current approach—which limits private gatherings to six people and forces restaurants to close early—excessive. If elected, he has vowed to immediately extend the time that many businesses could operate to midnight from 10 p.m.
With exposed people roaming the streets, the nation's resources had to be mobilized differently, said Park Young-joon, who leads South Korea's national contact-tracing efforts.
"We had to assess which parts of contact tracing to give up," said Mr. Park, a director at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. "We have 10 times the number of cases but without 10 times the number of contact tracers it's impossible to manage the situation."
Two years ago, Daegu was the epicenter of the first major Covid outbreak outside China. Back then, Ms. Lim was one of just two contact tracers on staff. Her phone rang throughout the night. Co-workers raided the stash of cup ramen in the corner office.
As recently as last month, her 10th-floor office was a noisy place filled with ringtones and familiar queries. But on a recent day, it was almost silent. She is now in reaction mode, waiting for outbreaks to be reported at nursing homes.
"I'm putting 100% of my energy into it, but I'm only achieving a hundredth of the work I used to do," Ms. Lim said.
While she no longer gets detailed reports on confirmed cases, Ms. Lim doesn't have to worry about false testimonies. She doesn't have to spend the night at the office or trudge in on the weekends. She can turn her attention back to people battling non-Covid illnesses.
Even when the Delta variant became dominant in South Korea last year, Ms. Lim never imagined seeing thousands of cases in Daegu. At times she prayed that the city wouldn't experience more than 150 cases a day, the maximum number her team could handle to investigate every close contact. Now, her file documenting infection routes and close contacts is slim.
Every large outbreak of the past had been a "shocking and traumatic" experience, said Ms. Lim, who has considered getting psychological treatment.
"We used to say that zombies lived on the 10th floor," she said. "But it's been too long since I've had an evening to myself."
Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com and Alice Uribe at alice.uribe@wsj.com
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