A robust network of “contact tracers” is needed to control the spread of the coronavirus and eventually reopen the country, experts say, a massive undertaking for a public health system that has been understaffed and underfunded for decades. State and local health departments are lobbying Congress for billions of dollars to hire at least 100,000 contact…
When a strange new virus begins spreading through a community, state and local health departments know who to call: The contact tracers.They are the men and women who meticulously track down the friends, family and colleagues of infected people to warn them they’re in danger and urge them to quarantine. Gov. John Bel Edwards said…
CLOSE A Los Angeles County test is looking for pivotal information about whether people can develop immunity that helps them fight off future infections. USA TODAYA public health expert who led the fight against the Ebola outbreak in Liberia says the United States is downplaying one strategy key to stopping the coronavirus pandemic: contact tracing.Tolbert…
With data continuing to suggest New York is "flattening the curve" in the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week that the next phase in the battle for his state and others is on the horizon: contact tracing.But it will come at a hefty cost.The labor-intensive commitment involves identifying those who have…
A contact-tracing app could help stop the coronavirus pandemic, but 80% of current smartphone owners would need to use it, say experts advising the NHS.The University of Oxford's Big Data Institute has modelled a city of one million people to simulate the software's impact.If there is lower uptake, academics say the app would still help…
U.S.|Grand Juror in Breonna Taylor Case Says Deliberations Were MisrepresentedThe Kentucky attorney general’s office said it would release the panel’s recordings after a grand juror contended in a court filing that its discussions were inaccurately characterized.Breonna Taylor's family and the lawyer Ben Crump, right, said the charges a Kentucky grand jury agreed upon in the…
(John Finney Photography/Moment/Getty Images) An abnormally bad season of weather may have had a significant impact on the death toll from both World War I and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, according to new research, with many more lives being lost due to torrential rain and plummeting temperatures. Through a detailed analysis of an ice…