Why contact tracing may be a mess in America

Dozens of states across the US are pinning their hopes on contact tracing to control the spread of the coronavirus and enable regions to reopen without sparking major resurgences of the outbreak.

Alaska, California, Massachusetts, New York, and others are collectively hiring and training tens of thousands of people to interview infected patients, identify people they may have exposed, and convince everyone at risk to stay away from others for several weeks.

Contact tracing is a proven tool in containing outbreaks of highly infectious diseases. But this particular virus could pose significant challenges to tracing programs in the US,