Get and Keep America
Open
Contact Tracing Jobs
Building an "Army of Disease Detectives"
U.S. Needs 100,000 to 300,000 Contact Tracers
Have a
friend or colleague who needs a job? Want to make a difference? Send them this
article
100,000 to
300,000 Disease Detectives Needed in U.S. Alone
Just a Thought - Just a Job? No - You
Can Help Save Lives in the Process
Contact Tracing Disease Detectives Earning $40,000 to
$70,000
Not bad for a temporary job for displaced retail Loss Prevention
professionals in need of employment in this market. Might be worth
mentioning to any colleague or unemployed LP associates you may know or have
worked with. After all it is somewhat of an investigative process that
requires great interpersonal interviewing skills. And it may just save some
lives in the process.
You don't have to look at it as permanent. But you never know how it unfolds
and wherever you have such large group of people, managers and an organizational
pyramid is there as well. Just a thought. -Gus Downing
Calif's "Army of Disease Detectives"
California Rushes to Build an Army of Coronavirus Detectives
State health officials have launched an unprecedented effort to train
thousands of front-line, county-level workers to act as a firewall to
stop the coronavirus from roaring back this fall.
Gov. Gavin Newsom calls them his “army of disease detectives.”
When someone tests positive for COVID-19, the tracing team will interview that
person, find out who they have been in close contact with, then quickly call
each of those people to tell them they have been exposed to the virus and to
instruct them to take a coronavirus test. If tests come out positive,
individuals will be asked to stay home for two weeks, and the whole cycle begins
again. Some counties, though, will simply instruct the person to self-quarantine
without taking the test.
Each tracer is receiving 20 hours of online training. Newsom said the state
already had more than 2,800 tracers on hand and another 500 had been trained
in recent weeks, ready to be deployed.
The state health department announced that each county should have 15 contact
tracers per 100,000 residents before it reopens restaurants and stores for
interior patronage.
San Diego County is advertising now for temporary contact tracers, offering
$19.50 an hour (the equivalent of $40,000 a year full time). Other counties
have issued help wanted ads. In Shasta County, a disease specialist at the top
end of scale can make up to $70,000. In Sacramento County, a senior communicable
disease investigator can make $66,000.
govtech.com
So You Want to Be a Contact Tracer?
![](http://d-ddaily.com/images/5-27-20nytimes.PNG)
Contrace Public Health Corps
Helping Health Dept.'s Across the U.S.
Tens of thousands of people across the United States have applied for the job
of cold-calling strangers who may have been exposed to Covid-19. Here’s what
it’s like.
More than 11,000 people across the United States who are calling people
with advice about containing the spread of Covid-19, according to a survey
conducted by NPR. (That number has most likely grown since the survey
was first conducted in April.)
Estimates for the number of people needed nationwide for contact tracing
range from 100,000 to
as high as 300,000.
The work is mostly phone-based and can be done from home. The jobs can be
full- or part-time, often with an hourly wage of $17 to $25; some include
benefits. They differ from one place to the next in part because training and
recruiting efforts have largely fallen to state and local governments (and some
of the programs have already run into
problems, both
practical and
political).
As
communities begin to open up and more people venture outside their homes,
the job is expected to become more crucial — and more difficult.
“If you can do contact tracing, you can get ahold of this before it runs through
a community like wildfire,” Ms. Jaramillo said. “Then you’re saving someone’s
grandmother, or their uncle.”
Taking an ‘old school’ approach
Phone conversations unfold according to the needs of the people on the other end
of the line. If they need testing for Covid-19, you can refer them for an
appointment. If they have symptoms, you might recommend isolation. If they worry
about survival in quarantine, you can connect them with food-delivery services.
And if they worry about privacy, assure them that their information is secure.
Training involves a primer on the federal regulations protecting confidential
health information, and you work with encrypted software.
The University of California, San Francisco, has been
working with both the city and the state to train hundreds of workers.
“Contact tracing is not a silver bullet,” said Dr. Mike Reid, an assistant
professor at the U.C.S.F. School of Medicine.
But he said the “old school” approach of San Francisco and other health
departments — which is based on education and empowerment,
not tracking apps like the ones
Google and Apple are working on — can bring communities together and
build capacity to handle future crises.
It’s a competitive job market
![Advertisement](http://dddaily.advertserve.com/servlet/view/banner/image/media?mid=70&pid=0&position=1&date=(date)&uuid=(email))
And the opportunities vary from state to state; Massachusetts and California
were among the earliest to adopt widespread Covid-19 tracing programs. With the
state's Health Departments managing the process.
Ohio's Department of Health
announced last week that it was hiring at $18.59 per hour. By Tuesday,
the job posting on the Health Department’s website had been
removed. Over 9,000 people applied to do contact-tracing work with the
state, according to the department.
And although Ohio officials have called for 1,700 contact tracers, those were to
be deployed largely by local health departments.
Contact tracers don’t work alone. The process starts with investigators who
reach out to people with Covid-19, and those conversations yield contacts for
tracers.
After those calls are made, there is follow-up work to be done to help people
find resources like food pantries and financial assistance.
What makes a good candidate?
Partners in Health,
which has helped Massachusetts officials recruit and train more than 1,700
people. That’s only a fraction of the more than 41,000 who have applied through
the organization.
“But what’s really important in the middle of an epidemic is empathy.”
Contrace Public Health
Corps, an organization helping health departments across the United States
recruit tracers, received more than 50,000 applications in recent weeks, mostly
from women, said Steve Waters, the chief executive.
While a college diploma is not always required, Mr. Waters said the best
candidates have a bachelor’s degree and some background in health care services.
Diversity is important, too.
“Cultural literacy is key to developing trust with someone you are
cold-calling, particularly in minority or distressed communities, which are
some of the worst hit,” Mr. Waters said.
Nationally, the
coronavirus is infecting and killing black people at disproportionately high
rates, reflecting longstanding inequalities in resources and access to care. The
virus has also brought
deadly disease clusters and economic crises to Native American reservations
across the United States.
“This is an opportunity to go on offense, track down exposures to this virus and
limit the spread,” he said. “It requires heart.”
“Every single day is different. I’m hearing many, many individual stories that
are depressing, inspiring and uplifting all at the same time.”
nytimes.com
Editor's Note: Start at your states Health Department and your local
Health Department. Bottom line is that this is an investigators job that
requires getting people to tell you things they really don't want to. And isn't
that what the industry is good at? Hey give them a call.
Educate Yourself Before Applying
CDC COVID-19 Contact Tracing - Program - Training - Resources
Get and Keep America Open: Supporting
states, tribes, localities, and territories
Revisions
were made on May 22, 2020, to reflect the following:
New guidance resource available (see “Guidance” section below):
Key Information to Collect During a Case Interview
Revisions were made on May 15, 2020, to reflect the following:
New guidance document available (see “Guidance” section below):
Health Departments: Interim guidance on developing a COVID-19 case investigation
& contact tracing plan
CDC guidance for COVID-19 may be adapted by state and local health departments
to respond to rapidly changing local circumstances
Training
• COVID-19
Contact Tracing Training: Guidance, Resources, and Training Plan
Visit
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov
Visit Your State's Health Department
NYC Hires 1,700 Tracers - Expects 2,500
New Mexico Department of Health and the State Personnel Office began accepting
applications Friday to fill 200 to 250 contact-tracing jobs
Contact tracing underway in Lancaster County, PA., 150 temporary jobs available
Chicago to hire 600 contact tracers - Just started recruiting yesterday