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Can contact tracing be helpful in slowing coronavirus spread even if test results take a day or two?

Thursday, August 6, 2020
By Samuel Henning
YES

Contact tracing has been shown to be helpful in slowing the spread of the coronavirus even without widespread availability of immediate testing results.

Notifying and seeking to identify others potentially exposed to an infected contact is a time-tested public health tool against infectious diseases, especially in the early stages of transmission. Models suggest that, even with a two-day wait for results before tracing can begin, an otherwise efficient process is an effective tool against the coronavirus given its incubation period and transmission patterns.

U.S. contact tracing efforts have run into other obstacles--even longer waits to get tests and then results, insufficient training and staffing, public resistance--that have made the technique much less effective in many jurisdictions.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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