NYC to Hire 10,000 for Contact Tracing

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would embark on an unprecedented diagnostic-testing program, hiring as many as 10,000 public-health workers to trace contacts of people who are infected.

The city, which is conducting about 14,000 daily tests, will need to increase its capability to 20,000 a day by May 25, with a goal of reaching 50,000 in the next few a months, the mayor said. Those who test positive will be placed in hotels if their homes are so crowded that they run the risk of infecting others, de Blasio said. Salesforce.com Inc. will help create a call center for tracing, he said.

The city, which will use its sprawling Health and Hospitals Corp. to run the effort, has received about 7,000 applications for contact-tracing jobs, the mayor said.