Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced a partnership with UC San Francisco and UCLA to begin training workers for a contact tracing program to help identify and notify people who have gotten close to someone who has tested positive for coronavirus.
Expanding contract tracing is one of the governor’s original landmarks to meet before lifting statewide health orders.
“Contact tracing enables the state to suppress the spread of the virus to avoid outbreaks and allows us to maintain our health care capacity and confidently modify the stay at home order,” the governor said in a statement Monday.
A virtual training academy will begin Wednesday and officials hope to train 20,000 people in two months to join the existing teams of contact tracers.
During his daily coronavirus briefing Monday, Newsom said every county does some form of contact tracing and the new program will revamp efforts statewide.
The governor also said low-risk businesses can start to reopen as soon as Friday with some restrictions, as California moves into the next phase of his four-stage reopening map.