A Day In The Life Of A Massachusetts Contact Tracer

Most of us are no strangers to spam calls, like for that warranty on the car you don't own or the student loans you never borrowed. But in many states, including in Massachusetts, you should consider picking up calls from that unknown number. It might actually be a contact tracer.

When anyone tests positive for COVID-19, teams of tracers are in charge of identifying every "close contact" they may have had with another human, calling them, informing them of their exposure and encouraging them to get tested. If they test positive, the process repeats.

But contact tracing is also about providing support for people during a potentially scary and unknown time. We hear from Alexander Bent, about this process. He's an investigator with the Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative, the contact tracing team with Partners in Health.