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Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced a new initiative Friday to accelerate the state’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, by dramatically scaling up the state’s capacity for contact tracing through a new collaboration with Boston-based global health nonprofit Partners In Health (PIH). The new Massachusetts COVID-19 Community Tracing Collaborative (CTC) is designed to not just flatten the curve, but bend the curve downward to more rapidly reduce the number of cases in Massachusetts. The initiative follows Gov. Baker’s recent announcement of significantly increased capacity for COVID-19 testing across Massachusetts, through private laboratories and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Widespread testing and aggressive contact tracing have been key pillars of public health responses to infectious disease outbreaks for more than a century. Along with effective isolation and quarantine measures, contact tracing has played an important role in highly successful control programs in Germany, The Republic of Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. Because of severe shortages of COVID-19 tests in the U.S., large-scale contact tracing has not been possible as many states are having trouble testing anyone beyond hospitalized patients. In many states, even those with symptoms strongly suggestive of COVID-19 infection are not being tested. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has been advocating that all countries must “go on the offensive” against the novel coronavirus, by implementing stronger quarantine and isolation measures and broader testing with contact tracing. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also has recently stated that as testing becomes more available, especially with the introduction of point-of-care rapid tests, much more testing and contact tracing should be done. Expanded testing and contact tracing will support the state’s ongoing efforts to expand bed capacity, increase supplies of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for caregivers, and provide more ventilators. Testing, contact tracing, and safe, high-quality care are the core elements of the state’s continuously expanding response to COVID-19. In Massachusetts, PIH and the Community Tracing Collaborative will support the state’s efforts by training and deploying hundreds of contact tracers, who will call people who have been in close contact with confirmed COVID-19 patients. The CTC’s work will be combined with the state’s initiatives to increase testing, and will provide support to people in quarantine in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. Partners in Health is hiring Contact Tracers, Resource Coordinators and Case Investigators to reach out to all Massachusetts contacts of COVID patients, counsel them on testing and quarantine, refer them for testing, and connect them to necessary resources throughout their quarantine. This is in tandem with Commonwealth-wide efforts to increase testing, improve communication, and implement isolation and quarantine. Apply now to work with PIH to fortify efforts to control the pandemic in Massachusetts. https://www.talentboost.cloud/partners-in-health