Transmit, Test, and Trace: Tracking COVID-19

In the first days of the pandemic, COVID-19 spread rapidly in Canada. Experts were still learning how the disease spread. Testing potential cases and contact tracing were essential to controlling the spread of COVID-19. The first line of defense was tracking outbreaks and transmission.

Transmission

Since the beginning of the pandemic health officials worked to understand how COVID-19 is transmitted. Once health officials understood the need for social distancing,  outbreak visualizations helped Canadians understand how COVID-19 spreads.

Fraser health infographic. Text reads: From just one COVID-19 positive wedding guest..... 50 wedding guests exposed and required to self-isolate, unable to go to work or school. Yellow lines leads to the right to the following text squares: 15 guests tested positive for COVID-19. 37 people required to self-isolate at home, unable to go to work or school. Yellow line to the left: 10 households with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. 1 family business affected by multiple positive COVID-19 cases. 5 employees tested positive for COVID-19. Yellow line down the center: 1 outbreak at a long-term care home. 81 required to self-isolate in their rooms. 1 person died. 3 admitted to hospital.

Fifty wedding guests in British Columbia contracted COVID-19 which led to a deadly outbreak at a long-term care home.

Outbreak visualizations were critical for maintaining public health. They easily conveyed to Canadians how quickly COVID-19 spread and emphasized the need to follow public health restrictions. Graphs like these depicted how a single case could become a serious outbreak if proper precautions were not taken.

Testing

Nasal swabs were the most common form of COVID-19 tests in Canada. Public health units created testing centres in parking lots, bus stations, and hospitals to accommodate the growing need to be tested.

A Halloween decoration exaggerates how it feels to be tested through your nasal cavity.

Testing for COVID-19 became easier than ever as health units across the country offered drive-thru testing.

Charlottetown residents in their 20s were asked to get tested, causing long lines at drive-thru testing clinics.

Testing was a critical part of the medical response to COVID-19. Without testing and tracing, transmission tracking would have been nearly impossible. Testing was the first step of maintaining public health.

Tracing

When individuals tested positive for COVID-19, it was vital to trace all the people with whom they had come in contact because they could carry the virus without symptoms. Tracing potential exposures prevented people from unknowingly spreading COVID-19 while asymptomatic. Tracking who had been exposed to COVID-19 required the cooperation of Canadians. 

The Government of Canada released an app that used Bluetooth data to determine if a user had been exposed to the virus.

While testing, tracing, and transmission were crucial to understanding how COVID-19 spread, the constant information overload challenged the mental health of many Canadians. 

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