Contact tracing in Singapore - Printable Version
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Contact tracing in Singapore - BostonCard - 03-25-2020
Thought this was a good visualization of how effective test and trace can be.
https://infographics.channelnewsasia.com/covid-19/coronavirus-singapore-clusters.html??cid=h3_referral_inarticlelinks_24082018_cna
You can see that most of the cases resulted in no secondary infections. You can also see a few "super spreaders", for example a couple that spread it to eight other people, one of whom spread it to seven more at a Chinese New Year gathering, one of whom spread it to 16 more at a church. But most individuals spread it to nobody else.
BC
RE: Contact tracing in Singapore - OutsiderFan - 03-25-2020
Singapore has done a masterful job of contact tracing. Even a month ago there were reports posted on their newspaper website identifying that same data on the website BC linked. It was remarkable and underscores just how primitive by comparison our news organizations have been.
The Hartford Courant has a map to show cases by county in Connecticut, but there is no data reported about individual cases or their contacts. Perhaps this is a HIPPA issue preventing us to have the insight needed to protect ourselves?
RE: Contact tracing in Singapore - magnus - 03-25-2020
Unfortunately, Singapore is now getting hit by a second wave as lots of citizens (including students) from abroad return home.
A new high of 73 new cases reported.
RE: Contact tracing in Singapore - Goose - 03-25-2020
(03-25-2020, 08:45 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: Singapore has done a masterful job of contact tracing. Even a month ago there were reports posted on their newspaper website identifying that same data on the website BC linked. It was remarkable and underscores just how primitive by comparison our news organizations have been.It is not our "news organizations" that are primitive, if you are referring to TV and newspapers. What is lacking in our case is the information to be printed. The Singapore (and Korean) public health services generated this information, not the news organizations. Our public health services have been and AFAIK still are unable to do anything similar, even in areas of the country with few cases. In Korea the public health organizations used the news media to assist them in contact tracing by publishing things similar to "anybody who was at such and such a party please visit the public health office ASAP".
I am sure HIPPA issues do prevent as much disclosure in the press as is possible in Singapore. However, I am also sure that the Santa Clara Health Officer has stated that she has very limited capability to do contact tracing and monitoring. I have every reason to believe the rest of the counties in the state are in the same or worse condition. The State of California hasn't said much about their capability, but I would guess it isn't awesome either. At one time the USPHS had a very strong capability to do this type of thing. It wouldn't have been able to cover a nationwide outbreak, but it did a good job on "moderate" sized outbreaks. It also maintained hospitals across the country for use in containing epidemics. Most if not all those hospitals are gone, either closed or given to local jurisdictions. Many (mostly southern) states also had a capability because they were subject to small outbreaks of various types of diseases. I think those capabilities went away when the diseases they targeted essentially were eliminated by drugs or vector controls.
I am concerned that I don't see a mad rush to figure out how to augment the capabilities of these organizations. The "shelter in place" is buying us some time and hopefully reducing the new case load to a "manageable" number for contact tracing and quarantine to work. However, if that manageable number in Santa Clara County is 10 cases or so, it may not be reachable. I am not saying that it will be easy to augment our current capabilities, but if we do not it could be a very long "shelter in place", probably too long to be politically sustainable.
RE: Contact tracing in Singapore - M T - 03-25-2020
Singapore is now using an app that tracks people (from before being sick). It was released on March 20.
"Singapore says it will make its contact tracing tech freely available to developers"
Quote:Phones that have the app installed exchange short-distance Bluetooth signals when their users are near one another. Records of those encounters, including the duration, are stored in their respective phones for 21 days, according to the app’s frequently asked questions section. It added that location data is not collected.
If a user is diagnosed with COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, they could allow Singapore’s health ministry to access their app data to identify people who had close contact with the infected individual.
Quote:South Korea is publishing the movements of people before they were diagnosed with the virus by retracing their steps using GPS phone tracking, credit card records, surveillance video and personal interviews with patients, the Washington Post reported earlier this month.
Quote:Israel has an app that can warn users if they’ve crossed paths with someone infected by the coronavirus.
RE: Contact tracing in Singapore - akiddoc - 03-25-2020
(03-25-2020, 10:43 AM)Goose Wrote:(03-25-2020, 08:45 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: Singapore has done a masterful job of contact tracing. Even a month ago there were reports posted on their newspaper website identifying that same data on the website BC linked. It was remarkable and underscores just how primitive by comparison our news organizations have been.It is not our "news organizations" that are primitive, if you are referring to TV and newspapers. What is lacking in our case is the information to be printed. The Singapore (and Korean) public health services generated this information, not the news organizations. Our public health services have been and AFAIK still are unable to do anything similar, even in areas of the country with few cases. In Korea the public health organizations used the news media to assist them in contact tracing by publishing things similar to "anybody who was at such and such a party please visit the public health office ASAP".
I am sure HIPPA issues do prevent as much disclosure in the press as is possible in Singapore. However, I am also sure that the Santa Clara Health Officer has stated that she has very limited capability to do contact tracing and monitoring. I have every reason to believe the rest of the counties in the state are in the same or worse condition. The State of California hasn't said much about their capability, but I would guess it isn't awesome either. At one time the USPHS had a very strong capability to do this type of thing. It wouldn't have been able to cover a nationwide outbreak, but it did a good job on "moderate" sized outbreaks. It also maintained hospitals across the country for use in containing epidemics. Most if not all those hospitals are gone, either closed or given to local jurisdictions. Many (mostly southern) states also had a capability because they were subject to small outbreaks of various types of diseases. I think those capabilities went away when the diseases they targeted essentially were eliminated by drugs or vector controls.
I am concerned that I don't see a mad rush to figure out how to augment the capabilities of these organizations. The "shelter in place" is buying us some time and hopefully reducing the new case load to a "manageable" number for contact tracing and quarantine to work. However, if that manageable number in Santa Clara County is 10 cases or so, it may not be reachable. I am not saying that it will be easy to augment our current capabilities, but if we do not it could be a very long "shelter in place", probably too long to be politically sustainable.
The Public Health agencies in the Bay Area were barely functional prior to Covid-19. They didn't seem capable of tracking STI's or TB cases, or even lead intoxication cases when I needed them to do it. I'm sure they weren't able to follow all of the Covid leads when there were only a couple of dozen known cases. Those departments have been an after thought in county budgets for years.
RE: Contact tracing in Singapore - Goose - 03-26-2020
(03-25-2020, 10:08 PM)akiddoc Wrote: The Public Health agencies in the Bay Area were barely functional prior to Covid-19. They didn't seem capable of tracking STI's or TB cases, or even lead intoxication cases when I needed them to do it. I'm sure they weren't able to follow all of the Covid leads when there were only a couple of dozen known cases. Those departments have been an after thought in county budgets for years.Thanks akiddoc for the info. I had feared as much. Do you know if any of these agencies are ramping up even in an ad-hoc manner to function better when we start dropping shelter-in-place?