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OTTAWA — Federal and provincial health officials are recruiting small armies of staff and examining technology options such as cell phone location data as they ramp up Canada’s capacity to do contact tracing.

Contact tracing involves searching out recent contacts of anyone who’s tested positive for COVID-19, and monitoring those contacts for symptoms and the potential need for testing and self-isolating. It’s key to stopping an uncontrolled outbreak in a community.

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Canada is still in its “first wave” of infections, and officials have said the best course of action for now is to have everyone stay home. But once the first wave fully subsides — likely sometime in the summer — extensive testing and contact tracing should allow Canada to start re-opening its economy and lift some of the physical-distancing restrictions.

“As we get this first wave under control, the absolute key is having sensitive systems to detect any new cases and then to do rigorous contact tracing around those cases,” said Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, on Friday.