Not really Ocho. The notification is easy. Think Amber alerts, or weather alerts etc. You just send them to all the phones that were near an "infected" phone. Be it a week ago or a day ago. Apple could have that up and running in a few days. Ditto Android. As for the cost, one bill that just passed, not the Heroes Act, but another one, earmarked 300 Billion with a B for contact tracing. Money's no object when it comes to "our safety".
If everyone had a Contact Tracing app then it is likely that everyone would be informed rapidly via technology. It is not a question of who has been in the Mall that day. Contact Tracing is about who has been in the location in the same time period (e.g. 1pm to 2pm). Keep in mind that we already do contact tracing for TB and other diseases in the U.S. where we trace every person who has been in a school, mall, restaurant, etc. at the same time as an infected person. This tracing is time consuming but very effective. TB outbreaks are quickly eliminated in a local community by doing this tracing.
Switzerland first to release COVID-19 app using Apple and Google Exposure Notification API https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/26/switzerland-first-to-release-covid-19-app/ The first app to take advantage of the Apple and Google Exposure Notification API has been released in Switzerland, according to a new report from the BBC. The app is called “SwissCovid” and is currently available to select essential workers. (More at above url)
The founder of a contact tracing firm that's fielded 80,000 job applications in 5 weeks describes what he's looking for in an applicant https://www.businessinsider.com/contact-tracing-jobs-founder-describes-successful-applicant-2020-5 Public health experts say the US needs an "army" of contact tracers who can help contain coronavirus outbreaks by tracking down everyone patients have come into contact with. in late April, CONTRACE Public Health Corps was launched to help with the nation's contact tracing needs. They've already fielded 80,000 applicants. The US has gone from 2,200 contact tracers nationwide to 36,000 since the coronavirus began to spread, but CONTRACE co-founded Steve Waters believes the country will need between 100,000 and 300,000. Waters told Business Insider successful contact tracers are empathetic, enjoy talking on the phone, and are adept at talking to people in times of crisis. (More at above url)
Sounds like people don't want to give out any information when a Contact Tracer contacts them.... N.Y.C. Hired 3,000 Workers for Contact Tracing. It’s Off to a Slow Start. The program is crucial to the next phase of reopening, which begins on Monday. But workers have not had much success in getting information from people who test positive. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/nyregion/nyc-contact-tracing.html New York City’s ambitious contact-tracing program, a crucial initiative in the effort to curb the coronavirus, has gotten off to a worrisome start just as the city’sreopening enters a new phase on Monday, with outdoor dining, in-store shopping and office work resuming. 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 the coronavirus in the program’s first two weeks gave information about close contacts to tracers, the city said in releasing the first statistics. The number ticked up slightly, to 42 percent, during the third week, Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman to Mayor Bill de Blasio, said on Sunday. Contact tracing is one of the few tools that public health officials have to fight Covid-19 in lieu of a vaccine, along with widespread testing and isolation of those exposed to the coronavirus. The early results of New York’s program raise fresh concerns about the difficulties in preventing a surge of new cases as states across the country reopen. The city has successfully done contact tracing before, with diseases like tuberculosis and measles. But as with much involving the coronavirus outbreak, officials have never faced the challenge at this scale, with so many cases across the five boroughs. The city’s program has so far been limited by a low response rate, scant use of technology, privacy concerns and a far less sweeping mandate than that in some other countries, where apartment buildings, stores, restaurants and other private businesses are often required to collect visitors’ personal information, which makes tracking the spread easier. 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 downtheir 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 to identify and isolate potential contacts. Dr. Ted Long, head of New York City’s newTest 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. Dr. Long said one encouraging sign was that nearly all the people for whom the city had numbers at least answered the phone. He added that he believed that the tracers would be more successful when they start going to people’s homes in the next week or two, rather than just relying on communication over the phone. “I do think that the program, especially because it is only two weeks old, is doing an outstanding job,” he said. The city has made major strides in reducing the outbreak since the shutdown began in March,with only 327 new cases reported on Thursday, down from several thousand cases a day during the peak. But Phase 2 of the reopening on Monday presents new risks, with 300,000 people likely returning to their jobs. Perry N. Halkitis, dean of the School of Public Health at Rutgers University, which is guiding an effort to bring on thousands of tracers in New Jersey, called New York City’s 35 percent rate for eliciting contacts “very bad.” “For each person, you should be in touch with75 percent of their contactswithin a day,” he said. He suggested that the poor showing stemmed in part from the inexperience of the contact tracers and insufficient hands-on training. “This is a skill,” he said. “You need to practice.” Across the world, the authorities have rushed to set up contact-tracing programs, hiring hundreds of thousands of people, including many without experience doing such work. While the goal is to reach all of a sick person’s contacts, and get them to effectively quarantine for two weeks, the reality is often much messier. In Massachusetts, which has one of the most established tracing programs in the country, health officials said in May that onlyabout 60 percentof infected patients were picking up the phone. InLouisiana, less than half were answering. In England, the program has struggled toshow results with a low-paid, inexperienced work force. Anincreasing number of countriesare using phone applications to help track and trace people who test positive. Several states in the United States, including North Dakota, that have tried using digital applications haverun into privacy issues. But in New York, as in most of the country, contact tracers are typically using only low-tech tools like phone calls and a questionnaire, in part to allay privacy concerns. The tracers are seeking the names and phone numbers of each person a confirmed-positive patient has been in close contact with from a few days before the onset of symptoms, defined as within six feet for at least 15 minutes. Each contact is then called, told that he or she may have been exposed to the virus, and asked to quarantine. The relative silence from virus patients in New York City is one of several issues troubling the contact-tracing program. Mr. de Blasio, who has had tense relations with senior officials in his own Department of Health, stripped the department of oversight for the program in May, moving itunder the umbrella of the city’s public hospitals agency. That has led to concerns among some former health officials that expertise would be lost in the process. Dr. Long said 50 experts from the Department of Health — the city’s contact tracers before Covid-19, who have handled epidemics such as measles and Ebola — are guiding the work of the tracing corps, but are not tracing themselves. Dr. Long is a primary care physician and vice president of ambulatory care at the public hospitals corporation. The Health Department’s tracing effort was led byepidemiologists. “I challenge anyone to show me how we are not collaborating,” he said of the relationship between the two agencies. “They have been nothing short of partners.” The city has had more success with its testing program, which is ahead of schedule, with a target of 50,000 tests per day expected to be reached in July, instead of August, officials said. But an initiative to set aside hotel rooms for people who have tested positive to isolate from families is not popular. Though the city rented 1,200 hotel rooms for free use by virus patients, only 60 to 80 rooms have been occupied in recent weeks, city officials said. And in the two and a half weeks since tracing began, only 40 patients have requested rooms through the tracing program, Dr. Long said. Over 1,000 virus patients have instead asked for support to isolate at home, such as assistance with grocery and medicine deliveries, because they preferred to remain with their families, he said. In an effort to build a connection between contacts and tracers, half of all tracers hired live in communities hard-hit by the virus, which are predominately black and Hispanic, Dr. Long said. Sivanthy Vasanthan, 23, who just graduated from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said recruiters reached out to her based on herLinkedInprofile, which emphasizes her interest in public health and human rights. After about two weeks of training, Ms. Vasanthan, who lives in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, began calling positive patients just over a week ago. “Most of the people who I have talked to have already been aware of their test results and have been at home,” she said. The city gave no metrics for whether it was successfully persuading those contacted to get tested or to quarantine. Experts said that while tracing in the city was not where it should be, the program was clearly beneficial and should push forward. “It’s tough to look at these numbers and say it’s a roaring success,” said Dr. Crystal Watson, an expert on contact tracing at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But I do think it is a beginning and it will build on itself.” Dr. Halkitis at Rutgers said he thought the low cooperation rate was likely due to several factors, including the inexperience of the tracers; widespread reluctance among Americans to share personal information with the government; and Mayor de Blasio’s decision to shift the program away from the city’s Department of Health. “You have taken it away from the people who actually know how to do it,” he said. “The D.O.H. people, they are skilled. They know this stuff.” On Tuesday, the city laid out strategies to close the gap in tracing. For the 15 percent of positive cases that have come in without an accurate phone number, Dr. Long said, tracers have begun reaching out to doctor’s offices and doing database research to get that information. And for people who have tested positive and are unresponsive to phone calls, field workers like Daniel Okpare, a public health student in East Harlem, will soon try to interview them in person. Mr. Okpare, 30, is still in training, but has been told he will mostly be visiting patients in Harlem, near where he lives. He said he hopedhis backgroundas a former podiatry student who is enrolled in New York University’s School of Global Public Health, as well as his being an immigrant from Nigeria, would help put people at ease. Wearing personal protective equipment, and carrying a city-issued iPad and a cellphone, he will be working alone while knocking on doors. “It’s an opportunity to be part of the front line of response as a public health professional,” he said. “To have eye contact with someone to say, ‘Yes you have Covid, but we are going to find every way possible that you will be safe.’”
We're a month beyond the original post in this thread. Didn't trust them then, even less trust today given how they continue to waffle back and forth on every aspect of this situation.
The U.S. doesn't even have a national Contact Tracing app. Most states have not adopted a Contact Tracing app either. On top of this we have all sorts of fake callers and text messages with urls claiming to be Contact Tracers while trying to steal your personal information. A complete mess.
Spain to trial coronavirus tracing app on Canary Island MADRID (Reuters) - Spain will try out a new smartphone app aimed at thwarting the spread of the coronavirus by injecting hundreds of false cases into the system in a test run starting on Friday on the Canary Island of Gomera. The simulation is part of a system intended to send an alert when one user has been in contact with another who receives a postive diagnosis, the government said. "The idea is that approximately 3,000 people download it and we will introduce around 300 simulators, beta testers, to mimic a pandemic among 10% of the population," a government spokeswoman said. It will use Bluetooth short-range radio to log contacts. To guard against impinging on people's privacy, contact records will be stored on individual devices rather than a central server, using a standard developed by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL). The trial will start on Friday and continue for two weeks, a period the government hopes will be enough to prove whether the app could be rolled out across the country. Technology and defence company Indra has been contracted to manage the pilot at a cost of about $375,000. Gomera is home to about 22,000 residents near the tourist hotspot of Tenerife. More than 28,000 people have died in the coronavirus pandemic in Spain, but the situation has eased and the country is emerging from a strict lockdown. The government is anxious to get the tourist industry, a mainstay of the economy, back on its feet and the Canary Islands are a popular destination. They had 2,398 confirmed coronavirus cases out of a national total of 245,268 as of June 18.