Page 7 - CEEM Shopping Mag June 2020

Contact Tracer Positions

Apps can help, too. Apple and Google have made tools available to

public health organizations so they can develop contact tracing apps
that allow coronavirus-positive individuals to record their diagnoses

and use Bluetooth technology to alert other app users that they had

been in close proximity.

But experts stress that technology can't replace human contact tracers,

who conduct lengthy interviews and perform detective-like work in
hunting down the myriad and winding paths disease can take as it races

through the population.

"Contact tracing apps may complement human contact tracing and add
efficiency, but they don't replace all the things you can do training armies

of contact tracers to be calling contacts and reaching out," Shapiro said.
"There are so many things that go into a call like that that helps someone

understand the nature of the contact and what they should do about it if

they get ill."

Meanwhile, a paper from the Brookings Institution argues that contact-

tracing apps could threaten privacy and "serve as vehicles for abuse and
disinformation, while providing a false sense of security to justify

reopening local and national economies well before it is safe to do so."

What skills are required?

Applicants for contact tracer positions don't need a background in health
care, but strong interpersonal skills and empathy are musts, experts said.
At least having an interest in public health also goes a long way. Call

center employees often make successful "disease detectives," as contact

tracers are also known.
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