Emphasis on contact tracing used to control spread of COVID-19

[jmyrlefuller]

https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/emphasis-on-contact-tracing-used-to-control-spread-of-covid-19/71-0d67e227-ae5f-49e0-a393-104026a7e9c8

by Ron Plants
May 10, 2020

Contact tracing relies on trained investigators who start with an index case. That's a person who is actively infected. And then they try to determine who he or she came into contact with over a period of time.

Typically these investigators are looking for anyone who had personal contact with that infected person for at least 15 minutes, was closer than six feet, and was not wearing a mask. There is focused questioning about those contacts.

Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein says: "If a person is an essential worker including a health care worker, then they may have more contacts because they're working so that would take more time. For the typical person who is not working, you know having close contact with people in their homes, usually about three people are contacted. But it depends upon everybody's situation."

(excerpt)

[jmyrlefuller]

This is a little primer on "contact tracing," which is something you'll be reading a lot about over the course of the next few months, and what it means. In areas where there isn't a whole lot of virus activity, the county health departments have already been using it to track the virus.

[Free Vulcan]

"But it depends upon everybody's situation."

And that's the rub. The more people, the longer the time, and things get exponential real fast.

Sounds good in theory, much harder in practice.