Everyone is talking about contact tracing once again ever since a study claimed that children are key transmit coronavirus. The study, published in the journal Science, found that children and young adults were more important in transmitting the disease from one place to another. So let’s tell you what exactly this contract tracing is and what is the whole purpose of doing that?
The main aim of contact tracing is to alert people who may have come in contact with someone infected with coronavirus and prevent them from further spreading it. According to experts, contact tracing is important for containing the virus and helps in allowing places to reopen more safely. But the entire process is very tedious.
After a person is tested positive for COVID-19, a contact tracer meets the infected person and tries to determine where all the coronavirus positive person has been and whom he met.
The focus of contact tracing is always to determine close contacts or those who were within the radius of two meters of the infected person for at least 10 minutes or so. Such people are then asked to self isolate themselves for at least a few days and get tested if there are any symptoms. The tracing process starts all over again for those who show symptoms.
There are different ways to contact tracing around the world but it really becomes tough when the person has been at a public gathering or in a gathering with family and friends. As restaurants and eateries have resumed services, it will be tough to trace such a person. This will get tougher with cinema halls and bars set to open soon in India.
Health officials could be overwhelmed with the cases.
Findings Of Contact Tracing Study
The study found that spread of the virus is driven by a very small percentage of those who got infected with COVID-19. It also found that children and young adults were much more responsible for spreading the virus.
According to researchers of the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), Johns Hopkins University, and the University of California-Berkeley, the chances of a COVID-19 positive person, regardless of their age, infecting other ranged from 2.6 per cent in the community to 9 per cent in the household. They found that children and young adults were key to transmitting the coronavirus in the studied populations.