One hundred health sciences students at the University of Iceland are assisting the Department of Civil Defense’s contact tracing team, RÚV reports.
Auður Kristjánsdóttir, a Master’s student in the physiotherapy department, is one of the students participating in contact tracing efforts. “We are just calling people and finding out if they’re aware that they should be in quarantine and checking on how they’re feeling, whether they are symptomatic and then [if so] directing them to call their local health clinic or 1700 [Iceland’s COVID-19 hotline],” she explained.
Auður said that she was just at home working on her thesis project when the contract tracing team reached out for student volunteers. “I thought I could help,” she said. “It’s gone well – we get a standard interview script that we go through and the interviews are, of course, confidential. People have responded well, they’ve been willing to provide their information in order to try and curtail the spread of the virus.”
