Alexandra Marvar, “It took two months to get unemployment,” said Denise Blackstone, a Dallas-based lease administrator for a healthcare company that owns upward of 600 physical therapy clinics around the U.S. “My application was denied in the beginning, I don’t know why. Maybe because I just moved to Houston, but I’ve been working in the state of Texas for decades as a real estate lease analyst. I’ve had the same job title for over...

Alaxandra Marvar, According to the World Health Organization, contact tracing — along with testing — should be the “backbone of the response” in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees.  In the past two months, states have deployed thousands of human contact tracers — a role that involves “detective work, profound humility, tact” and “cold-calling people who...