What is retrospective contact tracing? Thanks for asking!

Vaccine is the word on everyone’s lips right now when talking about COVID-19. While making a vaccine available is of course important, it’s not the only option for countries continuing the long struggle against the virus. 

Another tactic, used successfully in Asia, but so far to a far smaller extent in Europe, is retrospective contact tracing. That aims to identify the source of infection of each case.

looped mind

Many European countries came out of lockdown in the early summer, with public authorities highlighting the importance of testing, tracing and isolating. That approach had limited success and since the continent was hit by a second wave, experts have been looking at how to improve tracing methods. 

Until now, the main focus has been on identifying who else a sick person may have infected, and testing those contact cases. But now, it’s being suggested that retrospective tracing may be more useful, to determine who exactly infected that sick person in the first place.

If the person’s already infected, what’s the point? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

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