[Snorlax94]

N.Y.C. Hired 3,000 Workers for Contact Tracing. It’s Not Going Well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/nyreg...e=Homepage

The glass half full thinking is that the contact tracers are new and are learning, and will get better. And the hope (for locals) is that people in California will be more cooperative and more community-minded and will work with the contact tracers to make it a success.

The glass half empty thinking is that something is just wrong with America. I saw an interview with an infectious disease doctor from Vanderbilt saying that Americans are just so "independent" minded, but so are Germans and New Zealanders and South Koreans and people in so many other countries where the cases are dropping. For now, Americans are responding to contact tracing the same way they've responded to masks: at times, selfishly, self-destructively, immaturely, and hostile to science.

The city has hired 3,000 disease detectives and case monitors, who are supposed to identify anyone who has come into contact with the hundreds of people who are still testing positive for the virus in the city every day. But the first statistics from the program, which began on June 1, indicate that tracers are often unable to locate infected people or gather information from them.

Only 35 percent of the 5,347 city residents who tested positive or were presumed positive for Covid-19 in the program’s first two weeks gave information about close contacts to tracers, the city said in releasing the first statistics.

Dr. Ted Long, head of New York City’s new Test and Trace Corps, insisted that the program was going well, but acknowledged that many people who tested positive had failed to provide information over the phone to the contact tracers, or left interviews before being asked. Others told the tracers they had been only at home and had not put others at risk, and then did not name family members.

China, South Korea and Germany and other countries have set up extensive tracking programs that have helped officials make major strides in reducing the outbreak. In South Korea, for example, people at weddings, funerals, karaoke bars, nightclubs and internet-game parlors write down their names and telephone numbers, and the authorities have been able to draw on cellphone location data, credit card transactions and even closed-circuit video footage

In Massachusetts, which has one of the most established tracing programs in the country, health officials said in May that only about 60 percent of infected patients were picking up the phone. In Louisiana, less than half were answering.

[Snorlax94]

N.Y.C. Hired 3,000 Workers for Contact Tracing. It’s Not Going Well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/nyreg...e=Homepage

The glass half full thinking is that the contact tracers are new and are learning, and will get better. And the hope (for locals) is that people in California will be more cooperative and more community-minded and will work with the contact tracers to make it a success.

The glass half empty thinking is that something is just wrong with America. I saw an interview with an infectious disease doctor from Vanderbilt saying that Americans are just so "independent" minded, but so are Germans and New Zealanders and South Koreans and people in so many other countries where the cases are dropping. For now, Americans are responding to contact tracing the same way they've responded to masks: at times, selfishly, self-destructively, immaturely, and hostile to science.

The city has hired 3,000 disease detectives and case monitors, who are supposed to identify anyone who has come into contact with the hundreds of people who are still testing positive for the virus in the city every day. But the first statistics from the program, which began on June 1, indicate that tracers are often unable to locate infected people or gather information from them.

Only 35 percent of the 5,347 city residents who tested positive or were presumed positive for Covid-19 in the program’s first two weeks gave information about close contacts to tracers, the city said in releasing the first statistics.

Dr. Ted Long, head of New York City’s new Test and Trace Corps, insisted that the program was going well, but acknowledged that many people who tested positive had failed to provide information over the phone to the contact tracers, or left interviews before being asked. Others told the tracers they had been only at home and had not put others at risk, and then did not name family members.

China, South Korea and Germany and other countries have set up extensive tracking programs that have helped officials make major strides in reducing the outbreak. In South Korea, for example, people at weddings, funerals, karaoke bars, nightclubs and internet-game parlors write down their names and telephone numbers, and the authorities have been able to draw on cellphone location data, credit card transactions and even closed-circuit video footage

In Massachusetts, which has one of the most established tracing programs in the country, health officials said in May that only about 60 percent of infected patients were picking up the phone. In Louisiana, less than half were answering.