Emotional Calls And Weekend Worries: Working As A Coronavirus Contact Tracer

Dallas Paiva was excited and nervous as she picked up the phone and made her first call as a Massachusetts contact tracer.

The goal of the state’s Contact Tracing Collaborative is to reach out to every person who tested positive for the novel coronavirus or might have been exposed and help them isolate themselves so the virus can’t spread. Paiva had spent more than two weeks in training to become part of this team, which has grown to comprise more than 1,500 people.

“I was really excited to actually start doing it, and the person answered the phone and they were just not happy that I called them. They were actually very angry,” she recalled. “They said, ‘You folks have been calling me and calling me and I’m done with my isolation period. My doctor’s already cleared me. Can you stop calling?’ ”

After apologizing, Paiva recorded this information in the person’s file and flagged it for a supervisor.

Paiva has fielded hard calls before. She usually works as a member services representative for Blue Cross Blue Shield, but the health insurance company has temporarily redeployed her to support the state’s contact tracing initiative. Paiva first spoke with WGBH News during her training.

Read the rest of this story at GBH’s website.