boerne

Contact tracing would have been the responsibility of the CDC nationally and regional public health divisions. Little states have one, Texas has 8ish. They are so underfunded they can barely do a normal job, much less pandemic contact tracing. Thats my suspicion why it wasn't done. Having been on the MTA many times, it is no wonder they are at the peak of it. What I am surprised about is that the other big cities with mass transit are not quite as bad yet. Imagine contact tracing a standing room only subway car on the A from High Street going uptown. Everybody was just a little slow getting off the finish line and now we are paying for it. https://dshs.texas.gov/regions/default.shtm

Also of course there is the privacy thing.
HIPPA is not suspended during a pandemic, but certain parts might be- https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-profes...ncy/index.html

There is a limited HIPPA waiver in place currently, but I suspect people on the front lines don't know about it or really don't care because this is a rolling, almost never ending Mass Casualty Event. Those events take on a life of their own, new rules are developed, and untested treatment, management, and thinking will go outside the box very fast, as been shown numerous times over the past 2 weeks. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/fi...lletin-508.pdf

username

Thanks. I just wonder at this stage, is there any contact tracing going on in the US? Is there any value to still try to do any of it in places where it is already out of control (i.e. say more than 500 cases)?

chipmaster

Tracing makes sense when you are in the containment mode, the US and most western countries blew it and didn't act early enough to ever consider containment, nor did they have tine infrastructure in place for it.

Take a look at what Taiwan had in place from SARS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ta...ainst-covid-19

Don't believe the narrative now pushed that someone had decided to bar all Chinese and because of that US is far better. Their is NY Times article citing after that restrictions 40,000 people still came to the US from China. China or that in itself isn't where we should look for fault or blame, the world is now interconnected for the larger benefit of all. Look to places like Taiwan, So Korea, Singapore as case examples of very international traveled places that managed to manage this pandemic w/o shutting down life like most of Western world has.

username

I was in Taiwan when this happened and saw what they did.

A lot of the stuff they have done and the speed they have done it are impressive - because they learned the hard lesson from SARS, because the government the can do it (e.g. mobile phone tracking, integrating immigration/health care data, mask production/rationing system, national health care) and because the people trusted the government and cooperated. (This weekend's crowds at attractions in TW is certainly not good and can really get things out of control.)

Some of the tracing they did initially were very impressive. At one point, they decided to review all the national health care records (single payer, single system) to see who had flu-like symptoms / pneumonia but had not travelled to Mainland (thus not tested for COVID-19). Then they found a white plate taxi driver and realized he had COVID-19, the day after he died. Then they found a passenger he carried had returned from Mainland China. They tested that person's antibody to confirmed he had COVID-19.

However, even the Taiwan CECC said that now with 350+ cases + 40K+ people being under some kind of watch, they won't be able to do as a good job as they have done when there is any large community outbreak.

username

PBS Newshour report on Contact Tracing:

username

Heard this on NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ey-re-learning on how the states are doing and publishing the data. It contains links to some states' data.

zerolife

[Redacted reference to since deleted content]

Taiwan started banning visitors from China a full week after the US and having lived in Taiwan, there is certainly no shortage of Chinese there. Its the early and strong containment strategy which includes contact tracing and a government that took the virus serious that led to taiwans outcome as well as other asian countries. Even China which had a massive outbreak was able to get it under control.

Dont get me wrong I think the travel ban is the only thing Trump did right during the pandemic. It made a lot sense back in Jan 30th but there are increasing evidence that the virus was already spreading globally in 2019