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Contact tracing involves tracing a virus by establishing which people may have been exposed to patients with a confirmed case of the virus, via either PCR or antibody tests. It is a process used to understand how an infectious disease is spreading within a community, and serves two purposes: to figure out who an infected person has caught the illness from, and then to establish who they’ve been in contact with while infectious. Contact tracing was widely credited with stopping SARS in 2004, after almost 8,000 people were infected and almost 800 died from the coronavirus. The Australian government has launched a controversial contact tracing app in a bid to stave off further waves of COVID-19.