How do you track a virus you cannot see?
Key points:
Teams of contact tracers around the country are tracking the movements of people with coronavirus
They get in touch with workplaces, restaurants, taxis — anywhere someone may have spread the virus
Epidemiologist Dr Charles Alpren said the last few weeks have been “extraordinarily busy and extraordinarily intense”
“That is something we do all the time,” Victoria’s Deputy Chief Health Officer, Dr Annaliese van Diemen, told 7.30.
“It is a bit like detective work.”
Known as contact tracers, the people who do this work are rarely in the spotlight.
Employed by state health departments, contact tracers are usually asked to investigate measles and HIV.
They are highly skilled at finding where infected people have been and who they crossed paths with.
And their role has become vital in slowing the fast-moving coronavirus pandemic.
Spread across six floors in a skyscraper in Melbourne’s CBD, a team of about 30 has become nearly 1,000.
“This is something we have teams of people doing across the country every day of the week,” Dr van Diemen said.
