Rolling out contact tracing in Illinois a daunting task, but essential, expert says

It takes about a day to trace the contacts of COVID-19 patients at the Howard Brown Health clinic in Hyde Park, its director says. About 2⁄3 of those contacts end up testing positive.

Roughly a quarter of the coronavirus tests conducted at the Howard Brown Health clinic in Hyde Park have been coming back positive, amounting to about 20 new confirmed cases a day. The initial diagnosis is just the start of the staff’s work, though. What comes next is the arduous task of tracking down every person that patient may have encountered, a time-tested public health practice known commonly as contact tracing.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker told reporters on Tuesday that state officials were still trying to “spin up” a system, which he said is “a very large endeavor” that requires both hiring and technology. And Illinois Department of Public Health Director Ngozi Ezike alluded to a large-scale deployment of contact tracers in an interview last week with the New Yorker, saying thousands would likely be needed across the state.

In addition to traditional community outreach, Chicago Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady said Tuesday that an app rolled out by the city earlier this week to offer coronavirus-related assistance and allow Chicagoans to pre-register for a vaccine could ultimately be used for contact tracing.

why bother?

28 Apr: WaPo: Yet again, Trump pledges that the coronavirus will simply go away
By Philip Bump
During a news media availability at the White House on Tuesday, President Trump was presented with a comment he made more than two months ago.
“Today the U.S. hit a grim milestone of 1 million cases of the coronavirus,” CNN’s Jim Acosta said. “Back in late February, you predicted that the number of cases would go down to zero. How did we get from your prediction of zero to 1 million?”

“Well,” Trump replied, “it will go down to zero, ultimately.”...
This reply, while flippant, is not demonstrably incorrect...
The flu strain at the center of the 1918 pandemic, for example, still circulates and is included in annual flu shots...

April 28. Later in Tuesday’s news conference, Trump again claimed that the virus would simply go away, just as he had two months and two days earlier, when there were those 15 cases that would be gone in a few days.
“I think what happens is it’s going to go away. This is going to go away.”...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/28/yet-again-trump-pledges-that-coronavirus-will-simply-go-away/

compare the smugness of Bump (even bringing up the 1918 Spanish flu which covid19 IS NOT) & Acosta to the humility of Prof Raoult, who admits scientists don’t really know everything:

29 Apr: UK Express: French coronavirus expert REJECTS second wave fears branding warnings a ‘fantasy’
A LEADING health expert has dismissed fears France could be hit by a “second wave” of COVID-19 infections as officials unveiled plans to relax some of the country’s strict lockdown measures.
By Simon Osborne
Professor Didier Raoult said data on the spread of the virus suggested it had reached a “bell curve” which he claimed was a typical epidemic cycle which should rule out the prospect of a rebound.
Prof Raoult said: “The second wave story is a fantasy that was invented from the Spanish flu, which started in the summer and has nothing to do with it.
“Usually an epidemic happens in one curve. I hate to make predictions, but this way of constructing it is fairly common for epidemics.

“In the past, epidemics disappeared long before we had the means to contain them. They disappeared anyway.
“Humanity didn’t die from an epidemic, that’s the way it is. Epidemics start, accelerate, peak, disappear, and we don’t know why.”...

Prof Raoult said the French government’s plans to start easing lockdown measures on May 11 was justified...
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1275573/france-coronavirus-latest-news-second-wave-covid19-lockdown-updates

“Contact tracing is the largest US civilian mobilization since World War II,” the company says in its job postings, which advertise pay of $17-22 an hour.

Waters said the newly-minted company has not been contracted by any government agencies in Illinois. Instead, applicants from Chicago will likely be hired by a local employment agency or nonprofit, who he said will prioritize the hiring of residents with “an understanding of local geography and culture.”

So just your average Joe will be doing this tracing I suppose. Don’t call me I will not be home.

At what point does contact tracing make absolutely no sense? I think we passed that point about six weeks ago.

It it takes the people doing the contact tracing longer to trace the contacts than it does for the infected person to infect new victims, then they can never catch up. It’s a real mismatch of time constants.

It seems the only realistic way to do this is with the app being developed by Apple and Google. Other firms are creating such an app too. As soon as a person is found to be positive, every recent contact’s phone will light up and say “SORRY! You’ve been exposed!.” But it won’t tell you who, where, or how long you were exposed, so you can go to bed all panicked and full of high anxiety.

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