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Coronavirus: Who are the contact tracers and what are they doing?
May 28, 2020
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the 25,000 contact tracers they are the "key to unlocking the lockdown" in England. But who are the people who making the calls and what is the job like?
Some of them are trained medical professionals, doctors and nurses taking a break from their usual career to join the fight against coronavirus in a different way.
Others were recruited from call centres or they are students looking for a summer job.
From Thursday, their task is to help discover who may have been in contact with a person who has tested positive for coronavirus.
Many people who test positive will fill out an online form listing who they live with - the contacts who are most at risk - along with any they have been in close contact with (defined as within two metres for 15 minutes).
Coronavirus contact tracing: My new skill What if NHS coronavirus tracers contact me? Hands on with the NHS coronavirus-tracing app
Others, perhaps because they struggle with the technology, will get a call from someone like Lucy. (Contact tracers have been asked not to talk to the media, so names have been changed.)
A student in biomedical science at a university in the south of England, she applied for what was advertised as a customer service job before learning that she would be working on coronavirus contact tracing.
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