Johns Hopkins and Bloomberg Philanthropies, with New York State, Launch Online Course to Train Army of Contact Tracers to Slow Spread of COVID-19

NEW COURSE TEACHES APPLICANTS THE FUNDAMENTALS OF IDENTIFYING CONTACTS WITH KNOWN CASES AND HOW TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO SELF-QUARANTINE


With the urgent need to limit the spread of COVID-19, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with Bloomberg Philanthropies, today launched a free online course to help train a new cadre of contact tracers to reach and assist people exposed to the virus. Taking and passing this course will be a requirement for thousands of contact tracers being hired by the state of New York to fight the pandemic.

The new course, "COVID-19 Contact Tracing," highlights how contact tracing is a key component of a public health strategy to slow the spread of COVID-19 without large-scale shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. Through presentations by expert faculty and role plays, the course teaches the basics of interviewing people diagnosed with COVID-19, finding their close contacts who might have been exposed, and providing them advice and support for self-quarantine. Contact tracing is a public health practice that has been successful in breaking the chain of transmission of other infectious diseases, including measles and tuberculosis.

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