Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health launched a free online course to help train contact tracers, the people who will help track those exposed to the new coronavirus.
Public health experts widely believe that contact tracing will be essential to reopen the economy and safely lift restrictions. Contact tracing is the process by which the people who have had contact with an infected patient are identified.
The new course, launched in collaboration with billionaire Michael Bloomberg's charity Bloomberg Philanthropies, will teach the basics of interviewing people diagnosed with COVID-19, finding their close contacts who might have been exposed and providing the close contacts with advice and support for self-quarantine.
"This new training course, which we're making available online for free, will teach contact tracers how to do this work effectively — and help cities and states across the nation undertake these critical efforts," said Mr. Bloomberg.
People can register for the contact-tracing course starting May 11. It will take six hours to complete and is divided into five modules.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School recently estimated that the U.S. requires at least 100,000 contact tracers to limit the spread of COVID-19 and begin to reopen the economy.