Temperature screeners

One of the ways that companies were able to detect coronavirus (before lateral flow testing became widely available) was by testing people's temperatures. In many places, someone would stand with a thermometer and measure people's temperatures as they entered the premises. While a high temperature didn't necessarily mean that you had COVID-19, it was one of the main symptoms to look out for. Having people screening temperatures helped to control the spread of the virus in busy places such as airports, office buildings and shops.

Contact tracers

We all know that there was a big push for contact tracing during the early days of the pandemic. Contact tracers played a vital role in helping people know when they'd been exposed to someone who tested positive for the virus. Whether you'd been sat in the same restaurant, in the same workplace or the same household as someone with the virus, contact tracers were responsible for letting you know.

Of course, now that we have access to rapid lateral flow tests, there's a lot less need for contact tracers. Most people check if they have the virus before and after interacting with others & are able to notify people they've been in contact with themselves. We bet a lot of contact tracers never thought they'd end up in this role!

COVID-19 testers

If you've ever been to a COVID-19 testing centre, then you'll know that there were whole teams of people there helping to keep the operation running smoothly. There were people carrying out the tests, people collecting tests and people organising the tests to be sent off to the relevant laboratories. Again, these types of mass testing centres were more prevalent during the peak of the pandemic before tests became available through the post. For many people, these COVID-19 testers helped play a vital role in keeping our daily lives ticking over. If it was suspected that you had COVID-19, you could go to a test centre and get your results quickly. 

COVID-19 vaccinators

Once we started to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination program, a lot of healthcare professionals were required to distribute the vaccine. They came from all different industries and helped to provide the general public with the first line of defence against the virus. Doctors, emergency care professionals and security staff were all required to help the operation run smoothly. While most of them will have worked in a hospital environment before, it's unlikely that they ever had to distribute vaccines from disused warehouses and other unusual locations (if you've had your vaccines, you know what we mean!) These kinds of jobs would never have existed if we hadn't been confronted with the pandemic.