Pandemic Contact Tracing
On January 17, Massachusetts confirmed the presence of the more contagious strain of SARS-CoV-2, known as B-117, that first surfaced in the United Kingdom. With the strain likely to speed up the rate of transmission across the region, current contact tracing methods might be insufficient in preventing its spread throughout the commonwealth. But a solution may be within grasp.
New research from Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, and Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing suggests that “bidirectional” contact tracing—the practice of tracking positive COVID-19 cases to recently exposed individuals and back to their original source—can be twice as effective as current contact tracing methods, which only focus on identifying who the newly diagnosed individual may have infected, but not who infected them. The research team’s findings were recently published in Nature Communications.
Jonathan Huggins, a BU College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, worked closely with collaborators to build a model that explores the effectiveness of bidirectional contact tracing. While the spread of coronavirus has bloomed at an alarming rate across the United States, the team raced to collect data and analyze their results in just one month. Based on their analysis, Huggins and his team believe that bidirectional contact tracing, though more time-intensive than conventional tracing methods, could help prevent the spread of the more infectious B-117 strain.