KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The health community says more contact tracers are needed to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Places like Johns Hopkins University offer courses for members of the community to become a contact tracer.
Dr. Allen Greiner, chief medical officer for the Wyandotte County Public Health Department, said 15 to 30 contract tracers are needed per every 100,000 people in the population.
"If we don't do well with contact tracing, we don't do well with controlling the spread of the virus," Greiner said.
A report from the Washington Post suggests the U.S. was slow to tackle COVID-19 compared with other countries such as Germany, where epidemiologists credit contact tracing for slowing the spread of the virus.
New smartphone apps and Bluetooth technology can also help pinpoint the spread of COVID-19 based on a person's location, though some have expressed concerns over privacy.
"It's been used for infectious disease control for decades," Greiner said. "We always have active tuberculosis cases where we're following up whoever they've been in contact with."
The courses to become a contact tracer can take up to six hours to complete. It teaches through a series of videos that are followed up with a quiz. Once all the courses are complete, a person will need to pass a final assessment.
Once someone becomes a contact tracer, they will be able to connect with people who have been infected with COVID-19. The goal of the contact tracer is to help track down people the infected person may have been in close contact with early on in their illness to help mitigate the spread of the virus.
