What Is Contact Tracing?

You may have heard about "contact tracing" on the news. I don't know about you, but I am learning a LOT of new phrases with COVID!

So what is contact tracing? According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

"Contact tracing is used by health departments to prevent the spread of infectious disease. In general, contact tracing involves identifying people who have an infectious disease (cases) and people who they came in contact with (contacts) and working with them to interrupt disease spread."

 

Still sound confusing?

If you test positive for COVID, the your health department should call you. They will tell you what you need to do.

If you are sick with COVID

Since COVID (Coronavirus) can be easily spread, it's important that a sick person stays away from everyone else (self isolates.) That means you stay away from everyone else for 2 weeks - staying in a separate bedroom (or another room), and use your own bathroom if possible

That also means not sharing towels, dishes, etc with anyone else.

Can you spread it to other people?

The health department will also ask if you were around other people the 48 hours BEFORE you got sick. If you have been around other family members, coworkers, neighbors, etc - they are your "contacts".

Why do they ask the name and phone number of your "contacts?"

You can spread COVID to other people - even if you don't feel sick! 😟 Harvard Medical says:

"We know that a person with COVID-19 may be contagious 48 to 72 hours before starting to experience symptoms. Emerging research suggests that people may actually be most likely to spread the virus to others during the 48 hours before they start to experience symptoms."

 

Contact tracing is to help stop the spread of COVID.

Self isolation for the sick person

If the sick person self isolates for 14 days, they won't be able to infect other people.  (Because they are staying home with their germs!) Stay in another room, use a different bathroom. They can even have meals dropped off outside their door!

Quarantine for anyone around you

Then their "contacts" are going to quarantine for 2 weeks. You can develop symptoms anywhere from 2-14 days after you have been around someone with COVID.

So, if you have been around someone with COVID and think "Meh - I don't think I'll get it, I feel fine." And then you go back to work.....then get sick on day 10 or 11, you have just exposed all of your coworkers to COVID!

And that's how it's spreading so fast.

Remember when the first person in your city or state was diagnosed with COVID? It made the news, right? As of this writing, the United States is just shy of 3 million cases.

Contact tracing is an effort to slow the spread.

Make sure the person with COVID is self isolating.

Make sure their contacts are quarantining for 2 weeks (just in case they get sick too.)

And that will hopefully slow the spread!

Be safe and stay healthy!