What Is Contact Tracing?

Your help is the key to stopping the spread of COVID-19 and protecting your loved ones.

Contact tracers are calling with life-saving information that will keep you, your loved ones, and your community safe and healthy. So when a contact tracer calls, answer the phone.

The only reason you have been called is because you may have come into close contact with an individual confirmed to have COVID-19 or you tested positive for COVID-19 and may have spread the virus to others without knowing it.

That’s why if you test positive, we ask you to share your close contacts – anyone who was within six feet of you for more than 10 minutes starting two days before you first had symptoms – solely for the purpose of helping those people get tested or quarantine as they could be infecting others.

Your information is confidential. Your name will not be released to your contacts or your COVID-19 status – that information will only be known to public health officials and our local health department partners, if needed.


What is Contact Tracing and How Does it Help?

Contact tracing is the process used to identify those who come into contact with people who have tested positive for many contagious diseases – such as measles, HIV, and COVID-19 – and is a long-standing practice in New Jersey and around the world.

Contact tracing goes hand in hand with testing. It is part of the process of supporting patients with suspected or confirmed infection.

Here’s how it works:

  • When you test positive for COVID-19, in addition to providing you with support, the lab that tested you loads your test data onto the State’s secure epidemiological surveillance system called the Communicable Disease Reporting and Surveillance System (CDRSS).
  • Your positive case is then shared with your Local Health Department, who will call you to determine close contacts that you may have spread the virus to.
  • A close contact is anyone who was within six feet of you for more than 10 minutes at least two days before your positive test if you didn’t have any symptoms, or two days before your first symptom appeared.
  • Contact tracers – trained professionals from the community — get in touch with your contacts to recommend next steps like self-quarantining and to share resources about how those people can get tested.
  • NOTE: Your information is confidential. Your name will not be released to your contacts or your COVID-19 status
  • Contacts are provided with education, information, and support to understand their risk, what they should do to separate themselves from others who are not exposed, how they should monitor themselves for illness, and the possibility that they could spread the infection to others even if they themselves do not feel ill.
  • Local Health Departments across New Jersey have been conducting contact tracing for COVID-19 since the State identified the first case on March 4. However, as the case count has grown, Local Health Departments need more help getting this critical job done.
  • The information that Local Health Departments are collecting is limited in scope, detail, use, and dissemination solely to what’s necessary to identify, trace, contain, and treat COVID-19.

For COVID-19, the ability to scale our contact tracing capacity is absolutely crucial to break the chain of transmission, slow community spread, and restart the economy.

It is important to note that contact tracing is a decades-old common practice in public health. It is not the same thing as “exposure notification” or “digital alerting” tools. These consumer apps, such as those created with Google and Apple’s API, are not contact tracing tools. These apps function as a way for the public to track if they have come into contact with a person who has tested positive and entered that information into their phone.

NOTE: If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of your conversation with a contact tracer, you may hang up and call your local health department. You should also feel free to request the name and ID of anyone who calls.


Find your Local Public Health Office

PDF of Local Health Departments


Clark

Nancy Raymond
732-428-8405
no1@njlincs.net
www.ourclark.com
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 732-388-3434


Elizabeth

Mark Colicchio
908-820-4089
mcolicchio@ElizabethNJ.org
www.elizabethnj.org
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 908-558-2111


Linden

Nancy Koblis
908-474-8408
health@linden-nj.org
www.linden-nj.org
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 908-474-8500


Plainfield

Atif Nazir
908-753-3092
atif.nazir@plainfieldnj.gov
www.plainfieldnj.gov
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 908-753-3131


Rahway, Scotch Plains, Winfield

All use the Rahway Health Department

Dennis Green
732-827-2085
dennis.green@twp.woodbridge.nj.us
www.cityofrahway.org
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 732-827-2200


Roselle

Charles Glagola, Jr.
908-259-3031
cg3@njlincs.net
www.boroughofroselle.com
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 908-245-2000


Berkeley Heights and Hillside

All use the Union County Office of Health Management

Annarelly McNair
908-518-5625
amcnair@ucnj.org
www.ucnj.org
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 908-518-5620


Kenilworth and Union Township

All use the Union Township Health Department

Marconi Gapas
908-851-8507
mgapas@uniontownship.com
www.uniontownship.com
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 908-851-5000


Fanwood, Garwood, Mountainside, New Providence, Roselle Park, Summit and Westfield

All use the Westfield Regional Health Department

Megan Avallone
908-789-4000
mavallone@westfieldnj.gov
www.westfieldnj.gov/health
Public Emergency Contact After Hours Number: 908-789-4070


Apply To Become A Contact Tracer

If you are interested in assisting in New Jersey’s contact tracing efforts, fill out this online form.