Tracing the coronavirus: Students at Community College of Philadelphia are working to help stop the spread

Tyshien Maddox had seen what the coronavirus could do: His mother got it. So did his two brothers and his grandparents. And a cousin died from it.

So when Community College of Philadelphia, where he is a student, asked whether he would be interested in working for the city’s Department of Public Health as a contact tracer, he was all in.

“Anything I can do to help out and let people know this is real,” said Maddox, 38, of West Philadelphia. “It was very scary for us.”


Maddox is one of 13 CCP students working among the city’s 80 contact tracers. They call known contacts of coronavirus patients, warn them about possible exposure, check on their health daily, and ask them to quarantine.