“Testing. Tracing. Isolation.” An emerging worldwide
consensus terms this as the only strategy to combat the virus, to flatten the
curve. Contact tracing is locating where the virus might strike next. By
warning, quarantining and isolating likely patients, the transmission chain is
broken.
It starts with a caller working from home or a call
center talking to a patient over the phone. The caller may speak for up to 30
minutes trying to recreate the last few days of the patient. This is a delicate
task. Without ever meeting him, the caller is asking the patient to disclose
his private life. All the places the patient visited, and all the people he
came in contact with.
The only contacts considered are face-to-face contact,
with a distance of less than six feet, for 15 minutes or more. As the patient
recalls each of them, the contact tracer records them. If 15 such people are
found, the tracer starts calling each of them. The rule is to never disclose
who gave the name (in this case, the patient).
*****
Contact tracing is easier in small countries, and in
dictatorships. Singapore is both.
M, a Singaporean woman got one such call. ‘Were you in a taxi at 18.47 on Wednesday?’
The question was so precise, M panicked, but she confirmed. Next day three
people in protective gear turned up at her house. One of them produced a
contract. It prescribed the quarantine period, and mentioned the amount of fine
and prison sentence for breach of contract. M never learnt if it was the taxi
driver or another passenger in the same taxi who had tested positive.
*****
In Iceland, Europe’s most sparsely populated country
with 364,000 citizens; the first contact tracer was Evar Palmi Palmason, a
police detective. He formed a team with two cops, two nurses and a
criminologist, even before Iceland’s first case. When they heard of the first
suspect, Palmason used the same techniques he uses in his detective work. The
tracing produced 56 names. By midnight, all of them were contacted and asked to
quarantine themselves for two weeks. As cases in Iceland grew rapidly, the team
grew as well, eventually to 52 members.
One patient had attended a concert. Palmason used his
police training to find everyone who attended that concert, and sent all of
them into quarantine.
Iceland successfully flattened the curve. It had ten
deaths in all, and nobody has died since 19 April.
*****
South Korea has used a combination of credit card
data, CCTV records, and smartphone locations. Countries using phone apps have realized
the apps can only support but can’t replace human tracing. Contact tracing has
been used for measles, food poisoning outbreaks, AIDS and syphilis. The
requirement in the current pandemic, though, is high.
The USA and UK are just starting. USA needs 180,000
contact tracers, but has only 25,000. UK fewer than that.
An interesting profession that combines the work of a
detective, social worker, salesman and data collector. Job guaranteed for the next 24 months.
Ravi
फारच छान. ज्याला काम करायचे असतं तो कुठल्याही परिस्थितीत स्वस्थ बसत नाही
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