Coronavirus Questions Answered: Contact Tracing

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Cinda asked whether she should be logging everywhere she goes, so that if she does catch COVID-19, she’ll be able to tell her local health department whom she may have infected.

Cuyahoga County Health Commissioner Terry Allan said it’s helpful for people to have a sense of their activities, so contact tracers can better identify how the virus is spreading.

Those contact tracers spend a lot of time working with people with COVID infections to identify whom they might have had contact with when they had symptoms, and even before symptoms appeared.

“I think that understanding that history is critical, 48 hours before you had symptoms is when we start," Allan said.

Allan said if people are concerned they might not remember everywhere they’ve been, keeping a log could work, or there are now apps that will track where you’ve been.

Allan said this is why it’s important to stay home if possible, so fewer people will become infected if you have the virus.