How contact tracing can fight the spread of COVID-19

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Apr 16, 2020 | Jennifer O'Hara | @jenohara

Contact tracing is a used to slow community spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19. Contact tracing is the process of finding and reaching out to the people who have been in contact with an infected person. Then close contacts of a person who might have COVID-19 can be isolated or quarantined to lessen further spread of the virus.

On the Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast, Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious diseases expert and head of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, explains contact tracing and discusses other current news related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

To practice safe social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, this interview was conducted using video conferencing. The sound and video quality are representative of the technology used.

Dr. Poland has served as a consultant for Merck & Co. Inc., Medicago Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc, Sanofi Pasteur, Emergent BioSolutions Inc., Dynavax Technologies Corp., Genentech Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., Kentucky BioProcessing Inc. and Genevant Sciences Corp., and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. He is a paid scientific adviser for Johnson & Johnson. Honoraria: Elsevier.