Is Contact Tracing Hopeless in the United States?
How to do contact tracing when someone’s contacts may be thousands of strangers
If you look at the countries that successfully flattened the curve and are working on reopening — like South Korea and New Zealand — they all have something in common: contact tracing.
Contact tracing, or the process of identifying, tracing, and isolating people who have come in contact with someone who has tested positive for a disease — in this case, Covid-19 — is a pillar of public health infectious disease response. It’s also a strategy the United States has not deployed very well, if at all in many cases.
The U.S. is also now in a situation where people are gathering in large crowds. There are ongoing protests of tens of thousands of people in multiple cities, and this is happening as cities are also reopening. Even if people are not spending time in large groups at protests or outside of bars on New York City streets, the fact that cities are reopening means people are still coming into contact with more strangers than they were previously. For example, in stores, restaurants, and on public transportation.
