In one of his daily press conferences Tom Wolf indicated he would be starting the Civilian Coronavirus Corps. a civilian organization whose mission will be to keep the state from repeating it’s drastic lockdown needed to control the spread of the coronavirus in March, April, and May. Studies have shown that contact tracing, despite being a daunting task, is a way to help control the spread of the disease.
The governors plan also includes increased testing. Something that has been slowly but surely ramping up in PA. The target is to test 2% of the population of each month. As of Friday, May 22nd, the state is testing about 11,677 people per day – exceeding the minimum goal.
How to volunteer as a Contact Tracer and Join the Civilian Coronavirus Corps
If you’re interested in volunteering as a Contact Tracer, or you have unique skills you believe could assist the commonwealths fight against Covid-19 you are encouraged to join.
The Department of Health is heading the effort and to ensure individuals are met with appropriate opportunities for their skillset, the department has worked with ServPA to set up a Contact Tracing Team on the site.
If interested you should apply on serv.pa.gov – during registration you’ll be asked to join an organization and you should choose Contact Tracing (PA DOH) and complete your ServPA profile to the best of your ability.
https://www.serv.pa.gov/index.php
Generally Speeking Contact Tracing’s key roles are:
- Notify all exposed contacts, idealy within 24hours, to inform them they have potentially been exposed to someone testing positive for Covid-19 and the date of the exposure. The exposed are additionally asked to restrict their interatons with others for 14 days from that exposure.
- Provide information and support for the exposed contacts so they understand what they can do to care for themselves, and reduce the risk to those in their household.
- Monitor the exposed on a daily basis to ensure they are self-monitoring and have not developed symptoms.
- Protect Priviacy. Identies of people who may have exposed others to Covid are kept confidential.
- Contact Tracers are trained to provide health information in plain language, and will have access to translation services.
Now that the coronavirus cases are dropping across the state due to the aggressive mitigation efforts. in addition increased testing means regular life may start to return, and with a strong volunteer force, contact tracing aims to eventually bring more normalcy back to daily life
