What is a coronavirus contact tracer and how to get hired as one

Over the past few months, the coronavirus has destroyed many industries, forcing tens of millions of people out of the workforce. But some work, like contact tracing, has become all the more necessary due to the pandemic.

According to a job posting by the Foundation for Public Health in New York City. The local government said it also provided “all necessary equipment and an internet connection” so that individuals could do the work from home.

While contact tracing devices have been around for decades, the increased demand for them as a result of Covid-19 has raised a lot of questions about the impact these professionals have had on the pandemic. Below, CNBC Make It breaks down the details around what contact trackers work and what qualifications are needed before you can be hired to become an employee.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contact tracing is an essential part of a “multi-pronged approach to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Emily Gurley, an infectious disease epidemiologist and associate of science at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said: . She told CNBC Make It that at the core of contact tracing, employees are “trying to identify people who have been in contact with someone potentially infectious and you’re trying to let them know so they can change their behavior and don’t have to accidentally or intentionally infect anyone else.”

In the case of Covid-19, she said that contact tracing devices will be used to reach individuals who test positive for the virus. Because people with Covid-19 often don’t show symptoms right away and may not know they have the disease until they receive an official diagnosis, contact tracing helps an infected person remember and identify people they had close contact with during the diagnosis. period and the two days leading up to it. This will be done by asking questions about where the person has been and whether they have been near work, at home, or maybe in a car. This doesn’t include people you may have passed on the street or someone you said a brief “hello,” says Gurley. Once those exposed people are identified, the contact tracer will make a list of those people and contact them.

When contacting someone who has been exposed to the virus, Gurley, says it’s important for contact trackers not to identify the infected person for privacy reasons. “You’re not going to say, ‘Oh, you know, this person has Covid-19 and you’ve been around them,'” she said. Instead, she explains, the contact tracing device will say things like, “We just need to let you know that you’ve been exposed and here’s what you need to do next.”

Next steps, according to the CDC, include contact tracing devices that advise individuals to stay home and maintain social distance from others for 14 days after they are exposed to the virus. During this time, exposed persons will be encouraged to check their temperature twice a day and monitor whether they develop any Covid-19 symptoms such as coughing or difficulty breathing. Contract watchers will then periodically check in with these individuals to ensure that these self-monitoring steps are being taken. In the event that symptoms arise, it is recommended that the person notify a healthcare professional for medical attention.

For now, contact tracing work is being done remotely, Gurley said, but there’s a chance these locations could move to on-site call centers in the future.

To meet the immediate need for these roles, several states have launched their own plans to increase hiring, including California partnering with the University of California San Francisco to train up to 3,000 machines. contact tracing every week between now and early July.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said he expected to recruit between 6,400 and 17,000 surgeries statewide depending on the expected number of cases. To fill these positions, the state requires applicants to fill out an application and complete an interview before taking the free Johns Hopkins online “COVID-19 Contact Tracing” course. After the course, candidates will have 72 hours to pass a course assessment before they are eligible to be hired for the role.

Gurley, who serves as the lead instructor for the online course offered by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that the contact tracer hiring process varies by state and by key individuals. Centers should contact their local health department to find out the application process and the number of hours they will have to work. She makes it clear that to take her course you don’t need to have any knowledge of infectious disease or public health, and she emphasizes that the course is designed so that anyone with a High school education and above can attend.

The course is freely available to everyone through Coursera, run by Johns Hopkins in partnership with former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies. Individuals who take the six-hour course will gain the background knowledge they need to know about contact tracing before applying for a role through their city or state government, Gurley said. surname. The course launched on May 11, and over 150,000 learners signed up in the first week. Currently, New York is the only state using the course as a hiring requirement, but Gurley says the curriculum is general enough that other states use it as well.

The course is divided into five parts, she explains. These sections include basic information about Covid-19 and how it is transmitted; the basic principles of contact tracing, including how to identify a potentially exposed person; steps involved in investigating the case and tracing contacts; ethics of contact tracing, including respect for an individual’s privacy; and the skills needed to be an effective communicator during tracing.

“Ultimately, contact tracing is about people helping others, while emphasizing that good communication skills are an important part of the job,” says Gurley. “And so to be able to do that well, you have to be able to build relationships, which includes knowing how to talk to people but also knowing how to actively listen.”

To help learners master this skill, Gurley said anyone taking the course will hear examples of how the language and tone of voice should be used when talking to an infected patient. disease as well as contact with contacts.

Going forward, Gurley said, she hopes that contact tracing will remain an important part of the workforce and that state and local governments will continue to prioritize training individuals in the field. .

“If we had a stronger public health system that included people who knew about contact tracing earlier, we could engage these people faster and we wouldn’t end up in a situation like this. now,” she said, adding that the transmission of many Covid-19 cases could have been brought under control. “So my hope is that we learn from this and realize that public health is important. I would be very disappointed if we did all of this to build employees. this public health and then fire them again.”

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