Q2: Can I get hired to do contact tracing?
Q3: Will the Apple/Google phone tracing technology replace the need for contact tracers?
A1: A contact tracer… traces contacts!
In an infectious disease outbreak, a contract tracer talks to people who have tested positive for the disease (a “case”) to find out all the people they have recently been in contact with (the “contacts”). The tracer then reaches out to the contacts to inform them that someone they have been in contact with has tested positive for the disease, and give guidance about appropriate next steps: testing, self-quarantining, monitoring symptoms, etc. In the case of COVID-19, contact tracing is considered one of the key strategies to contain the outbreak (along with testing, isolating cases, quarantining contacts, and social distancing) and allow communities to re-open. While contact tracing has been a core public health function for decades, many local and state health departments no longer have a large enough contact tracing workforce to meet the COVID-19 demand. Thus:
A2: Many health departments are now scrambling to recruit, train and deploy contact tracers. Several local news stories over the past few days have mentioned these efforts — we saw stories from Houston TX, Washington DC, and San Francisco CA to name just a few. If you’re interested in working as a contact tracer, start with your local (city, county, state) health department. The requirements for the job vary — some health departments are only hiring college graduates, for example. Many are looking for prior customer service experience. Given the realities of stay-at-home orders, and the fact that most contact tracing is done by phone, contact tracing can usually be done remotely.
A3: Apple and Google have teamed up to develop an app that uses location data from smartphones to automate some of the work of contact tracing. If most people have the app on their phone, then (in theory), contacts can just be pinged when someone they have been in contact with tests positive, and advice about next steps can be automatically pushed from the app. Sounds amazing! Also, yikes! You can start to see some of the challenges here: Privacy concerns and widespread willingness to use the app for starters. Also, the app doesn’t solve the problem that many COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic and may never get tested. Even with those concerns ironed out, it’s likely that human contact tracing will still be needed. See this LA Times story for more on why.
