The search has begun to find 2000 workers to join Scotland’s new Covid-19 contact tracing team.
The Scottish Government is calling on people to apply for the roles as it adopts a new “test, trace, isolate” strategy to tackle coronavirus and help ease lockdown.
Posts including call handlers, health protection nurses and data analysts are now open to applications up until May 22.
Nicola Sturgeon, who announced plans for the Contact Trace Team last week, said the strategy would only work if the public adheres to it, adding it was not a “quick fix or magic solution” and would need to be done alongside current hygiene guidance.
The First Minister said the plan involved testing people in the community who have symptoms consistent with Covid-19.
The team will then use contact tracing to identify the close contacts of those cases, who may have had the disease transmitted to them.
Staff will ask and support those close contacts to self-isolate, so that if they do develop the disease, there is less risk that they will pass it on to others.
Sturgeon added: “It is important to stress that ‘test, trace, isolate, support’ will be most effective when levels of infection are low – lower than now – and stay low.
“This will not be easy. In this next phase, we will be asking people to self-isolate, not for their own benefit, and not because we know for certain that they have contracted the disease, but in order to protect others in case they have.”
The Scottish Government paper on the strategy can be found here and details on how to apply for a role in the contact team can be found here.
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