(TNS) - Working from home with her children in another room and a cat lounging next to her laptop, Christina Zilke is a public-health nurse on the front lines of trying to contain COVID-19.

She is one of about 20 employees of the Washtenaw County Public Health Department currently involved in contact-tracing, which is the process of reaching out to individual coronavirus patients to stymie the chain of infection.

“It’s part investigator and part teacher,” said Zilke, who normally serves as the department’s immunization nurse coordinator.

The job of contact tracer includes helping coronavirus patients figure out specific strategies to keep from infecting others; keeping tabs on household members and other close contacts to see if they get sick, and following the trail of more potential victims if and when those contacts test positive.

“It can be like a target with circles around it that get bigger and bigger” as the virus works its way through a community, Zilke said.

Read more