Joe Patterson, Ph.D.:
Other than personal responsibilities, such as wearing a mask, self-health assessments, isolation if needed, and minimizing potential points of exposure, testing and contact tracing are the most important things we can do.
Testing and detecting infected individuals early on, before they can spread COVID-19, is the best we can do without a vaccine or viable treatments. If we can detect the virus early and limit spread, we can start to contain and isolate hotspots across the country. This will also hopefully allow for resources to be diverted to these hotspots and hospitals in the area to prepare for a potential influx of COVID-19 patients.