State Officials, Health Leaders Offer Update on Community Tracing Collaborative

BOSTON — The Baker-Polito administration joined Partners in Health and local public-health officials to provide an update on contract-tracing efforts through the COVID-19 Community Tracing Collaborative (CTC) launched last month. The initiative focuses on tracing the contacts of confirmed positive COVID-19 patients and supporting individuals in quarantine, building on COVID-19 Response Command Center efforts to leverage public-health college students to augment the contact tracing being done by local boards of health.

If an individual tests positive for COVID-19, the MA COVID Team will reach out by phone to connect the confirmed case with support and resources necessary for quarantine, and to identify any close contacts that may have been exposed. As the CTC continues its contact tracing work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, it is critical that Massachusetts residents answer the phone when a contact tracer calls or texts. Contact tracers will only reach out from phone numbers with 833 or 857 area codes, and the phone’s caller ID will say MA COVID Team.

Since calls began on April 12, tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents have participated in contact tracing. Staffed with more than 1,600 tracers, the Tracing Collaborative has reached nearly 14,000 confirmed cases and established more than 7,500 of their contacts since calls began on April 12. In part due to effective social-distancing measures, the median number of contacts reported by each confirmed case remains approximately two.

To learn more about the MA COVID Team and the Community Tracing Collaborative, visit www.mass.gov/matracingteam.