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Pennsylvania Partners With Staffing Agency To Hire 1,000 Contact Tracers

HARRISBURG (KDKA) - The Pennsylvania Department of Health is hiring 1,000 coronavirus contact tracers who will be paid up to $20 an hour.

The nearly $23 million federally funded contract with Insight Global will recruit, hire, train and support 1,000 contact tracers, the department announced Friday.

The health department says together with Insight Global, they'll focus recruitment efforts on workers who lost their jobs because of coronavirus and hire people to represent the diversity of the state.

All positions will be remote and the hourly rates range from $17 to $20. Both full and part-time work is available.

Earlier this week, it was revealed at a Pennsylvania House Democratic Committee Meeting that the Department of Health will spend up to $27 million for contact tracing and will need to hire as many as 4,000 employees to get the job done.

Contact tracing is locating people who have come in contact with others who are infected with COVID-19 and asking them to quarantine. When combined with wearing masks, social distancing and testing, contact tracing is a way to slow the spread.

Contact tracing is routine and already being done for diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C.

"Across Pennsylvania, we have dedicated public health professionals who truly are the backbone of contact tracing, and this expansion of the contact tracing team will only support, strengthen and expand their efforts," Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine in a press release Friday.

"This project will bolster and diversify our public health workforce all while coordinating and mobilizing efforts in order to conquer any potential surge in COVID-19 cases. We are eager to onboard and train this new cohort of public health professionals to help identify, notify, and monitor anyone who came in close contact with an individual who tested positive for COVID-19."

You can learn more about contact tracing on the health department's website.

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