ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — The St. Louis County Department of Public Health is partnering with Saint Louis University to research COVID-19 and expand contact tracing capabilities.
Using $600,000 of CARES Act funding, the health department has contracted the university’s College for Public Health and Social Justice to “provide scientific, analytic and research support to strengthen our fight against COVID-19,” according to a press release.
SLU will help improve the ability to track the transmission of COVID-19 in the county and represent the state of the virus and data. The university will work with the health department’s training staff to move contact tracing curriculum online and provide additional training for up to 250 contact tracers.
Several SLU faculty members will add their expertise to the department’s epidemiology, communications and geospatial work.
“It will help us research and plan for an eventual COVID-19 vaccine. And it will allow us to use SLU’s COVID-19 app for symptom tracking and contact tracing,” the department said in the release.
