Hi, this is Zach Dyer. I'm the producer of the Epidemic Podcast. And before we get to today's show, there was a small favor you could help us out with.

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Thanks for your support. I'm Dr. Saline Gounder and this is epidemic.

Today is Friday, July 24th. Kimberly Jocelyn loves to travel. Back in February, she had been visiting the Cayman Islands when she first started paying close attention to news about the coronavirus. She had another trip plan for March, one she had been looking forward to for a long time,

two weeks in Italy with a stopover in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day.

And the border started to close.

And I was like, wow, people are dying, people are getting sick, this is serious.

And I said to myself, I, what can I do as a public health and social work

practitioner within my capabilities to help the nation.

After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Kimberly had worked as a crisis counselor helping families who'd lost

their homes. She went out into the field, met

with people, and helped connect them with resources. So it's meeting them where they

are and helping them find some sort of new normalcy.

Right now that new normal in New York City is several hundred new cases of COVID every day.

That's much lower than the peak back in March in April, but if the city's going to safely reopen, there needs to be a way to find cases of COVID, track them, and hopefully prevent the spread of the virus.

Kimberly saw how COVID had interrupted her community. of the Hi, this is Kimberly Jocelyn. I'm calling from the New York City

Test and Trace Corps. I'm calling about a health matter. Is this so and so?

And they'll confirm their identity and then

inform them that this is a recorded line that's how I typically just start with a

call.

...