Massachusetts hailed as COVID-19 contact tracing model to opening up economy - Lowell Sun

Hunting down every new case of coronavirus once the peak is over is the only safe way to lift the nationwide lockdown, Johns Hopkins University researchers said Monday citing Massachusetts as a model.

The Maryland university has been at the forefront of COVID-19 tracking with its hugely popular worldwide map of the pandemic. Now the school’s public health experts say opening up America will require “a robust and comprehensive” contact tracing system.

Such an approach could cost $3.6 billion, the researchers estimate.

That means hiring public health professionals who can cage the spread of the lung-destroying virus by staying on top of every new positive test — something Gov. Charlie Baker proposed earlier this month.

“It is estimated that each infected person can, on average, infect 2 to 3 others. This means that if 1 person spreads the virus to 3 others, that first positive case can turn into more than 59,000 cases in 10 rounds of infections,” Johns Hopkins researchers wrote Monday in a paper on contact tracing in the U.S.

Similar approaches have worked for AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, measles, tuberculosis and Ebola.

The key, Johns Hopkins researchers wrote, is to move fast:

• Quickly test those with symptoms and all others with “a reasonable suspicion” of being exposed to COVID-19.
• Target those who have developed an immunity and could return to work or school.
• Trace all contacts of reported cases and “isolate the sick, and quarantine those exposed.”

That will take a small army of public health workers — “100,000, paid or volunteer, contact tracers to assist with this large-scale effort,” the researchers state.

That’s similar to what Baker proposed April 3 when he announced the public-private Community Tracing Collaborative that will use 1,000 COVID-19 detectives to track down new cases. It’s the first of its kind in the U.S.

Johns Hopkins researchers said Massachusetts is on the right path.

“If we take the Massachusetts approach and apply it across the country, that will mean about 50,000 additional contact investigators are needed in the United States. However, it is likely that many more will be necessary,” the researchers say.

They add Baker’s “multi-agency and multisectoral coordinated approach can serve as an example to other states.” It also comes on the same day Johns Hopkins posted a new map of the pandemic in the U.S. to help track the virus.

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Massachusetts hailed as COVID-19 contact tracing model to opening up economy - Lowell Sun
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