Contact tracing is an essential strategy employed by the public health sector in the fight against COVID-19. It’s an old tactic that has helped fight other viruses in the past and is still useful today.
Contact tracing involves finding, monitoring a person who has been in contact with an infected person, and educating them on the right steps to follow to ensure their safety.
According to the CDC, any individual within 6 feet of an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more of laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients will have to conduct contact tracing.
How Does It Work?
The community’s health workers will reach out to the people who have tested positive for COVID-19. Then inquire from the person about the people they’ve been in contact with.
Afterward, the contact tracers reach out to these exposed people while keeping the infected person’s information confidential. The contact tracers will then advise the infected person and the exposed people on possible steps to stay safe.
According to sources, you’ll be asked the following:
- Your personal information
- The people you’ve come in contact with
- And to isolate yourself to curb the spread.
And for the people exposed, you’ll be asked to:
- Get tested and possible quarantine.
- Social distance
- Inform your close friends and whoever you’ve come in contact with about the issue
- To check your temperature twice daily and keep your health professional informed about the developments.
- Notify their doctors if they see any symptoms
Since the COVID-19 vaccine isn’t yet available to the general public, contact tracing is a useful tool to curb the virus’s spread.
But you have to play your part. No matter if you’re infected or in the category of the exposed, you have to be open to sharing the information that’s asked of you. This is the only way to help the health professionals successfully accomplish the tracing accurately.
Looking for Where to Get Tested?
If you were exposed or you see symptoms, you’ll be asked to get tested. This is why we set up our testing site located on 5555 Hamner Ave, Norco CA 92860, which is open Sunday-Monday from 7:30 am-9:45 pm, making it easy to find an appointment time that works with your schedule.
Sources:
https://wearelifelinehealth.com/when-will-the-covid-vaccine-be-available-to-the-general-public/
https://covid19.ca.gov/contact-tracing/