TOLEDO, Ohio — Contact tracing is something that's been talked about by the governor and our local health officials to help limit the spread of coronavirus.
Students at the University of Toledo are now playing a large role in those efforts by volunteering to help.
According to Dr. Joe Dake, University of Toledo professor and Chair of the School of Population Health, contact tracing is a very labor intensive process so the more volunteers, the better.
He was asked by the Health Department at the beginning of April if they would be able to train students as contact tracers. A number of them said yes.
"We had that group start and then very quickly thereafter we opened it up to more Public Health students, and then very quickly thereafter we opened it up to nursing students. So, very shortly we went from about seven students to 130," Dr. Dake said.
In another two weeks, he says they'll have an additional 100 volunteers from the College of Nursing.
Public Health student, Bailey Kurtz, was one of the first to get trained. She said the decision to become a contact tracer was easy because she knew she wanted to help in any way.
"Obviously I never expected this to happen. As an epidemiology student though, it's a really cool opportunity that I'm getting to see something first-hand that we will probably be studying and talking about for the rest of our professional careers," Kurtz said.
She has been making calls for the last six weeks and makes a couple calls each day.
You can find more information on contact tracing here.