Outbreak Response Toolkit

COVID-19 is a clustering disease, making it more likely to spread through outbreaks involving multiple people, rather than transmitting one-on-one between individuals. Being able to identify, investigate, and contain these outbreaks is an efficient way to reduce the spread of COVID-19.  Outbreak response brings together the core public health interventions - from testing and contact tracing to social support, vaccination, and treatment – and targets them towards the people and locations at high risk of COVID-19 transmission. This document describes the what, why, who, and how of COVID-19 outbreak response.     

Asking COVID-positive people where they think they were infected during the case investigation interview is one of the most effective and efficient ways to identify clusters. In this training resource for public health staff, we explain ‘source investigation’ and ‘clusters’, and give tips and tricks for how to do them well.   

Identifying someone’s COVID-19 exposure source can be tricky even for experienced case investigators. This document provides guidance on how to think about the ‘source investigation’, alongside the types of questions that can help someone remember and identify their most likely source of exposure.   

When a COVID-positive person visits a location while infectious, there is the possibility of widespread exposure, including to potentially unidentifiable people. In these cases, it is especially important to notify not just those who met the ‘close contact’ definition, but anyone who may have been exposed through shared air space. This document includes guidance for public health staff on how to talk to locations about such exposure and next steps, as well as the types of questions to ask depending on the sector involved (e.g. workplace, nightclub, social event, etc.).   

Widespread notification is an especially helpful tool to let those in a public or crowded setting know about their potential COVID exposure. This can be done by public health staff and/or those connected to exposure locations (e.g., business owners, religious leaders, team coaches, social event hosts, etc.). This document includes email, phone, and social media templates that can be used for widespread notification, including for do-it-yourself contact tracing and testing guidance.   

Case maps show how an outbreak occurred over time, including the people and locations involved. Making a case map is a useful tool for those investigating outbreaks, and for those impacted by them. But outbreak investigations often include a lot of information, and being able to present the right information succinctly can be difficult. Mapping outbreaks can be incredibly useful when discussing the implementation of preventive behaviors or motivating policy change, especially for those who are not as familiar with the transmission dynamics of COVID-19. This document provides guidance and templates for how to make high impact case maps.    

Outbreak investigations require both data collection and review/analysis. The type of information collected, and how it is used, may vary across different data systems. As public health professionals review data, being as comprehensive and creative as possible can help unearth clusters, as well as additional cases that may be linked to them. This document provides examples of data queries that can be used to help with outbreak investigations.