Contact tracing identifies those people that were in close contact with someone who has coronavirus. for instance , members of the family, friends, colleagues or fellow travellers.
It is done to scale back the spread of coronavirus within the community. The people who do this work are called ‘contact tracers’.
Close contact can mean:
- spending over 15 minutes of face-to-face contact within 2 metres of an infected person in any setting
- living in the same house or have shared accommodation with an infected person
If you test positive
If you test positive for coronavirus a contact tracer will call you. they’re going to ask for contact details of your close contacts.
They only ask about people and places you have visited 48 hours before your symptoms started.
They do not ask about people you’ll have passed by on the road or in a shop. In these situations, the danger is extremely low.
If you’re a close contact
If you’re a close contact of somebody who has tested positive a contact tracer will call you and:
- confirm your name and address
- ask about symptoms
- ask for the name and phone numbers of your close contacts, if necessary
- arrange a coronavirus test for you, even though you do not have symptoms
- advise you to limit their movements for 14 days
You will need to restrict your movements for 14 days even though your test comes back negative. It can take up to 14 days for the virus to show up in your system after you have been exposed to it.
During the 14 days a contact tracer will text or phone you to watch any symptoms you’ve got , if any. If you develop any symptoms of coronavirus, call your GP.
Aarogya Setu
Aarogya Setu is an Indian open-source cross-platform CoVID-19 “Contact tracing, Syndromic mapping and Self-assessment” digital service, primarily a mobile app, developed by the National Informatics Centre under the Ministry of Electronics and information Technology (MeitY). The stated purpose of this app is to spread awareness of COVID-19 and to attach essential COVID-19 – related health services to the people of India. it’s a tracking app which uses the smartphone’s GPS and Bluetooth features to trace the coronavirus infection. The app is available for Android and iOS mobile operating systems. With Bluetooth, it tries to see the risk if one has been near (within six feet of) a COVID-19 – infected person, by scanning through a database of known cases across India. Using location information, it determines whether the location one is in belongs to one of the infected areas based on the information available
