A group of 20 Assumption University biology students is spending the spring semester training to become contact tracers to help track the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Students in an infectious and epidemic disease course at the Worcester university are completing a required 20 hours of training to become registered contact tracers. The university has partnered with the Worcester Division of Public Health’s academic health collaborative to use the students as contact tracers later in the spring.
The students are training through MAVEN, a state infectious disease management network, and a program offered by Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, and hope to complete the process by March 4.
Students in the course are learning about major epidemics including coronaviruses, as well as smallpox, cholera, the plague and tuberculosis.Â
