What is contact tracing?

Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP via Getty Images

During an infectious disease outbreak, one of the best tools public health experts have is old-school detective work: finding each sick person and then figuring out who they recently interacted with. The technique, called contact tracing, helps get outbreaks of diseases like COVID-19 under control.
Contract tracing is based on an obvious idea: people in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 are at risk of getting sick
In order to lift social distancing measures like school closures and “stay home” orders, public health agencies will have to start aggressively contact tracing and at a much higher level than they were a few months ago. That will keep new cases of the virus from growing into new outbreaks. The US can only relax…

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