LOS ANGELES - President Trump's positive COVID-19 test generated a firestorm of headlines and news stories.
This browser does not support the Video element.
Experts at UCLA are among those partnering with the state of California to hire and train the COVID-19 contact tracers.
It also put the spotlight again on contact tracing, an important weapon in combating the spread of the virus.
RELATED: Authorities warn of COVID-19 scammers posing as contact tracers in order to steal your identity
Experts here in Southern California, like their counterparts in states across the country, are hiring, training, and deploying contact tracers to work the phones, asking personal questions to those who've tested positive in order to literally trace their contacts. They reach out to them by phone, and warn them because of their exposure to someone who's positive, they need to quarantine.
Thousands of people have already been hired and trained, but more need to be hired to keep up with the new cases. UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Professor Dr. Shira Shafir is helping coordinate this COVID-19 tracing academy.
RELATED: Continuing coverage of the coronavirus in Southern California
Shafir says, "When people are contacted and told that they need to quarantine, they need to monitor themselves for symptoms, it can have a very clear impact on that individual's life, and making sure they're really receiving appropriate testing and care, and they're working really hard to prevent exposing other people unnecessarily."
The challenge is that once the COVID-19 positive people are contacted on the phone, many don't want to answer the contact tracer's questions. By some estimates, about half of those contacted don't want to participate in the voluntary program.
Get your top stories delivered daily! Sign up for FOX 11’s Fast 5 newsletter. And, get breaking news alerts in the FOX 11 News app. Download for iOS or Android.