Until there’s a vaccine for the new coronavirus, infectious disease professionals point to digital contact tracing as a key way for authorities to safely lift lockdowns and begin cauterizing the economic, mental health and other personal trauma the pandemic is inflicting on millions of people worldwide.
Contact tracing involves monitoring people who’ve come into close contact with those diagnosed with an infectious disease, such as COVID-19. Contact tracing comes in two basic flavors: manual and digital. Health authorities may use them in tandem. Manual contact tracing usually starts with a public health official calling those close contacts and offering recommendations for preventing the virus from spreading further.
“It’s test, track, trace and quarantine,” said Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, on a recent JAMA podcast.
Governments around the world, including in the U.S., are turning to digital contact tracing to speed up the process. Some digital contact tracing applications that epidemiologists and software engineers have developed alert users in near real-time if they have come into contact with someone who has COVID-19. The two primary purposes of using digital contact tracing are case management and proximity tracking, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Clark Merrefield – Journalist’s Resource – May 11, 2020.
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