Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
icon-menu

searchSearch data by region...

JHU has stopped collecting data as of

03 / 10 / 2023

After three years of around-the-clock tracking of COVID-19 data from...

Contact Tracing

Resources and Expert Guidance for Tracing the COVID-19 Pandemic

Contact tracing is a critically important tool in pandemic response. Public health officials have long used this tactic to break the chain of transmission of infectious diseases and limit the spread of infections. The COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented challenges and will require new approaches to this long-standing public health strategy. Experts at Johns Hopkins University are offering free guidance and resources for successfully implementing both traditional and digital contact tracing, as well as tracking data on the adoption of these efforts in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Share

Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response

As officials in many countries strive to find a balance between respecting civil liberties and controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report – led by the Berman Institute for Bioethics in collaboration with the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins, as well as leading experts worldwide – highlights the ethical, legal, policy and governance issues that must be addressed as digital contact tracing technologies are developed and implemented.

Public engagement icon Transparency and public engagement are essential to an inclusive digital public health response
Privacy icon Digital public health responses must represent the least infringement of civil liberties necessary to accomplish public health goals
Mobile phone icon Use of digital public health technologies and data must be guided by the best available evidence
Legislation icon Responsible use of digital public health technology requires meaningful governance and accountability
Group icon Pandemic responses must be rooted in a commitment to equity
Core PrinciplesExecutive SummaryFull Report

Contact Tracing

COVID-19 Contact Tracing: A Course from Johns Hopkins

The COVID-19 crisis has created an unprecedented need for contact tracing across the country, requiring thousands of people to learn key skills quickly. A free, six-hour Coursera class developed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies is now available to train contact tracers about how to do this work effectively—and help cities and states across the nation undertake these critical efforts.

Take the Course

Contact Tracing

Measuring and Maximizing Impact of COVID-19 Contact Tracing: A Course from Johns Hopkins

This course aims to provide managers and developers of contact tracing programs guidance on the most important indicators of performance of a contact tracing program, and a tool that can be used to project the likely impact of improvements in specific indicators. Students who complete the course will be proficient in using the Contact Tracing Evaluation and Strategic Support Application (ConTESSA) to estimate the impact of their contact tracing program on transmission and strategizing about how to increase their program’s impact.

Take the Course

Latest News & Resources

Filter By

All

news | March 2, 2022

The New York Times: The C.D.C no longer recommends universal contact tracing.

Almost two years after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for 100,000 contact tracers to contain the coronavirus, the C.D.C. said this week that it no longer recommends universal case investigation and contact tracing.

news | February 11, 2022

Verywell Health: Public health officials wind down COVID contact tracing

State and local health departments are scaling back contact tracing on cases of COVID-19, a practice that was important early in the pandemic.

news | January 7, 2022

The Washington Post: Amid Omicron surge, contract tracing is more complicated, officials say

With the number of potential contacts infected by the highly contagious Omicron variant far higher than with previous variants, it is not feasible for health officials to reach everyone who may be at risk.

news | February 24, 2021

USA Today: COVID-19 exposure warnings for iPhone, Android phones: apps still await widespread adoption

Six months after the arrival of the first COVID-19-warning smartphone apps built on a privacy-preserving framework from Apple and Google, they remain yet another coronavirus pandemic scarcity.

resource | November 25, 2020

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Monitoring and Evaluating Contact Tracing Programs

Contact tracing courses, metrics and tools from the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

resource | November 25, 2020

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: ConTESSA

An interactive tool that supplements the Measuring and Maximizing Impact of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Coursera course. This tool can be used to estimate the impact of a contact tracing program on transmission and strategize how to increase it.

resource | November 25, 2020

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: COVID-19 Resources for Practitioners

This website offers a centralized collection of publicly available COVID-19 resources for public health agencies and other organizations.

news | November 10, 2020

Time: Contact tracing apps were big tech's best idea for fighting COVID-19. Why haven't they helped?

Contact tracing apps have made slow progress across the country, hampered by sluggish and uncoordinated development, distrust of technology companies, and inadequate advertising budgets and messaging campaigns.

news | October 5, 2020

Today: What is contact tracing? How experts are tracking coronavirus infections.

President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis highlights the importance of contact tracing. What does it entail?

news | October 3, 2020

NPR: How do you contact trace the president of the United States?

What does it look like when you're contact tracing the President of the United States, in the hectic, jam-packed last weeks of a reelection campaign?

news | August 30, 2020

The Hill: Patchwork approach to contact tracing hampers national recovery

A patchwork approach to contact tracing across state health departments is making it increasingly difficult to know where people are getting exposed to COVID-19.

news | August 20, 2020

NPR: How to tell a real COVID-19 contact tracer's call from a scammer's

State officials and federal agencies warn there's a new phone scam circulating: Callers posing as COVID-19 contact tracers are trying to pry credit card or bank account information from unsuspecting victims.