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Title:

A National Plan to Enable Comprehensive COVID-19 Case Finding and Contact Tracing in the US

Authors:

Crystal Watson, Anita Cicero, James Blumenstock, Michael Fraser

Date posted:

April 10, 2020

Publication type:

Report

Publisher:

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

See also:

View PDF

Introduction:

In order to save lives, reduce COVID-19’s burden on our healthcare system, ease strict social distancing measures, and confidently make progress toward returning to work and school, the United States must implement a robust and comprehensive system to identify all COVID-19 cases and trace all close contacts of each identified case. 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.