During the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing, or identifying individuals who have been in contact with positive cases of COVID-19, has been used to help reduce the number of cases and slow the spread of the virus. John Hopkins University released a training course about contact tracing to inform individuals about what it is and what it is for. While contact tracing helps to reduce the number of cases of COVID-19, there are some ethical considerations with the process including isolation and quarantine of individuals. The ethical considerations would include asking individuals private and confidential information, having them isolate or quarantine, and making sure that they have everything they need to be success in their isolation or quarantine. Getting an individuals private and confidential information is an important part of the contact tracing to make sure you have the right individual, all of the people they have been in contact with, and the services they will need if they were to isolate or quarantine. If an individual had to go into isolate or quarantine, the contact tracer would have to make sure that the individual had all of the services they needed to be able to live during that period. This can include food, water, medication, laundry, health-care visits, etc. If the individual in isolation or quarantine does not have access to these services, then the contact tracer will help the individuals get the services they require. If they do not, it would be unethical to have an individual stuck in isolation or quarantine without the resources they need.

When contact tracing, there are some common barriers that come up. These can include, but are not limited to positive cases not knowing who they were in contact with or where they went previous to their positive test. Some strategies to overcome these barriers would be for the contact tracer to have the positive case look at a calendar or use social media to remember where they were or who they were in contact with. I will be able to apply what I learned from the John’s Hopkins University COVID-19 Contact Tracing Course in my future nursing practice if I ever had to trace the contacts of a positive case of any infectious disease. I will be able to talk to the positive case, find out their recent contacts, and help them get the services they need while they are in isolation or quarantine.