In Massachusetts, outbreak specialists track COVID-19 clusters
Posted on Mar 12, 2021
During a global pandemic, an infection can happen anywhere—a church, a car wash, a grocery store. But not every setting ends up spreading the virus far and wide.
That’s why Bridget Hanna spends her days looking at maps. For Hanna, an outbreak specialist with the Epidemic Intelligence Unit, these maps of Massachusetts towns don’t just give directions—they tell stories.
“Every COVID case is connected,” she says. “Which is to say, at a basic level, that everybody got it from someone else. But most people will get it from somebody who gave it to a couple of people. And that’s what really makes it a cluster.”