CoronaBro Meltdown/SARS-Covid-19 Spitballing Thread

[michigancat]

doug jones!

so Jones asked specifically about contact tracing and hotel isolation, etc. and Redfield we're working on a plan to get ready for that IN THE FALL

Like they're funding states to test out implementation to be ready for the fall? Would be nice to have that able to be dispatched to different locations in a state relatively quickly.

It starts at ~2:57 with the adorable little senator from daxieland. Redfield's answer was a pretty remarkable non-answer. I mean I could probably have made up a better answer.

[420seriouscat69]

to be clear, this is the Cal State University system

you can't have a football season without fresno st.

[420seriouscat69]

https://twitter.com/brett_mcmurphy/status/1260382873263144961?s=21

[sonofdaxjones]

doug jones!

so Jones asked specifically about contact tracing and hotel isolation, etc. and Redfield we're working on a plan to get ready for that IN THE FALL

Like they're funding states to test out implementation to be ready for the fall? Would be nice to have that able to be dispatched to different locations in a state relatively quickly.

It starts at ~2:57 with the adorable little senator from daxieland. Redfield's answer was a pretty remarkable non-answer. I mean I could probably have made up a better answer.

This proud centrist non hyper partisan amazing person, voted for Doug.

But the whole day was a bunch of non answer answers.   

I haven't looked at the numbers, but I heard in passing while running a curbside errand that GA's numbers continue to go down. 

[Trim]

This is a decent compromise of keeping tabs on things, but if they're going to contact everyone who was at a restaurant within 14 days of when someone who tests positive was there, that's gonna be a lot of freakouts.

Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday rolled out a system of Covid-19 monitoring and quarantining that will eventually replace his “stay home, stay healthy” order, getting people out of their homes and gradually reopening the economy.

The regimen involves the following steps:

- Encouraging those who have Covid-19 symptoms to quarantine themselves in their homes, even if they haven’t tested positive for the virus.

- Widely available Covid-19 testing.

- Quickly quarantining those who test positive — and their household members — for two weeks in their homes.

- Deploying a “contact tracing team” to identify those who have been in contact with someone who tests positive for Covid-19.

- Quarantining those who have been in contact with someone who has Covid-19 — and their household members — even before they test positive for the virus.

“If it’s successful, it will allow us to reopen our economy,” Inslee said of the five-step protocols.

State officials are cautiously projecting that they can lift the pandemic lockdown June 1 and continue a phased reopening of the economy, including restaurants, shops, office spaces and more. Still, Inslee cautioned that date is only a goal and timing may shift.

Inslee said during an afternoon press conference that the state now has 1,371 people on its contact tracing team, a key milestone. There are currently just more than 200 known cases of Covid-19 in Washington state on a given day. The contact tracing team now has enough people to track down those who have been exposed to each one of those cases.

In addition, the governor said the state is on its way to having enough vials, swabs and fluid for widespread Covid-19 testing. Inslee said the state is expected to get 580,000 swabs and medium fluid from the federal government this month and again in June. In addition, he said, private companies are stepping up to provide testing equipment, including one in Vancouver that has 30,000 test kits.

The contact tracing team is made up of 630 state and local health department officials, 390 members of the state’s licensing department and 351 members of the Washington National Guard, who will work under the purview of the health department and, officials stressed Tuesday, will serve no law enforcement role.

Inslee said the contact tracing team, which has been trained in patient privacy, aims to track down those exposed to Covid-19 within 24 hours. The state, he said, is also working with the University of Washington on a contact tracing app that will use technology from Apple and Google. The governor stressed that data security and confidentiality are extremely important.

“This information will remain private,” Inslee said. “Contacts will not be told the name of the person who may have exposed them to Covid-19.”

In addition, people of limited resources who are in quarantine will have an assigned caseworker who will check up on them and help with grocery shopping, filling medication prescriptions and other assistance families may need.

In addition, Inslee said Tuesday that when restaurants do reopen they will likely be required to take the name of each diner in case someone in the restaurant tests positive for Covid-19. The information would be used by the contact tracing team to track down fellow diners who may have been exposed to the virus.

Inslee said his office is currently working with restauranteurs to finalize the protocols for reopening. Restaurants, he said, would be barred from using customers’ information for marketing purposes, selling the data or divulging it to anyone but health officials.

Those restaurant records would likely be destroyed after 14 days.

“We’re talking to the restaurant owners about things that might make sense for them,” Inslee said. “We want to be able to open restaurants. People are anxious for that.”

[michigancat]

This is a decent compromise of keeping tabs on things, but if they're going to contact everyone who was at a restaurant within 14 days of when someone who tests positive was there, that's gonna be a lot of freakouts.

Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday rolled out a system of Covid-19 monitoring and quarantining that will eventually replace his “stay home, stay healthy” order, getting people out of their homes and gradually reopening the economy.

The regimen involves the following steps:

- Encouraging those who have Covid-19 symptoms to quarantine themselves in their homes, even if they haven’t tested positive for the virus.

- Widely available Covid-19 testing.

- Quickly quarantining those who test positive — and their household members — for two weeks in their homes.

- Deploying a “contact tracing team” to identify those who have been in contact with someone who tests positive for Covid-19.

- Quarantining those who have been in contact with someone who has Covid-19 — and their household members — even before they test positive for the virus.

“If it’s successful, it will allow us to reopen our economy,” Inslee said of the five-step protocols.

State officials are cautiously projecting that they can lift the pandemic lockdown June 1 and continue a phased reopening of the economy, including restaurants, shops, office spaces and more. Still, Inslee cautioned that date is only a goal and timing may shift.

Inslee said during an afternoon press conference that the state now has 1,371 people on its contact tracing team, a key milestone. There are currently just more than 200 known cases of Covid-19 in Washington state on a given day. The contact tracing team now has enough people to track down those who have been exposed to each one of those cases.

In addition, the governor said the state is on its way to having enough vials, swabs and fluid for widespread Covid-19 testing. Inslee said the state is expected to get 580,000 swabs and medium fluid from the federal government this month and again in June. In addition, he said, private companies are stepping up to provide testing equipment, including one in Vancouver that has 30,000 test kits.

The contact tracing team is made up of 630 state and local health department officials, 390 members of the state’s licensing department and 351 members of the Washington National Guard, who will work under the purview of the health department and, officials stressed Tuesday, will serve no law enforcement role.

Inslee said the contact tracing team, which has been trained in patient privacy, aims to track down those exposed to Covid-19 within 24 hours. The state, he said, is also working with the University of Washington on a contact tracing app that will use technology from Apple and Google. The governor stressed that data security and confidentiality are extremely important.

“This information will remain private,” Inslee said. “Contacts will not be told the name of the person who may have exposed them to Covid-19.”

In addition, people of limited resources who are in quarantine will have an assigned caseworker who will check up on them and help with grocery shopping, filling medication prescriptions and other assistance families may need.

In addition, Inslee said Tuesday that when restaurants do reopen they will likely be required to take the name of each diner in case someone in the restaurant tests positive for Covid-19. The information would be used by the contact tracing team to track down fellow diners who may have been exposed to the virus.

Inslee said his office is currently working with restauranteurs to finalize the protocols for reopening. Restaurants, he said, would be barred from using customers’ information for marketing purposes, selling the data or divulging it to anyone but health officials.

Those restaurant records would likely be destroyed after 14 days.

“We’re talking to the restaurant owners about things that might make sense for them,” Inslee said. “We want to be able to open restaurants. People are anxious for that.”

Quarantining entire households without support is tough, even if they have more than "limited resources" but overall that's a decent step in the right direction. I think the freak outs are the point.

[sonofdaxjones]

cRusty, hopefully you're spending 3x as much time decoupling your company fully from the Chinese Communist Party then you are on here talking about contact tracing and cRusty's Covid-19 Gulags.

[Trim]

I think the freak outs are the point.

It brings me back to something I've been curious about re: contact tracing - what's the correct amount of contact to count or be traced?  There can be whole days where I don't have any irl contact with anyone I know and could provide info about, but do have contact with strangers like people I end up stopping and talking to while walking the dog or people I end up closer to than I'd like while in my building (say, delivery people or contractors, not even neighbors whom I could eventually figure out) or randoms in the grocery store. 

I think if I tested positive and was asked who I'd had contact with for a week or so, I'd usually be able to name one.

Contrast that with the exponential network of randoms who'd dined in a place I did over 2 weeks.

[michigancat]

I think the freak outs are the point.

It brings me back to something I've been curious about re: contact tracing - what's the correct amount of contact to count or be traced?  There can be whole days where I don't have any irl contact with anyone I know and could provide info about, but do have contact with strangers like people I end up stopping and talking to while walking the dog or people I end up closer to than I'd like while in my building (say, delivery people or contractors, not even neighbors whom I could eventually figure out) or randoms in the grocery store. 

I think if I tested positive and was asked who I'd had contact with for a week or so, I'd usually be able to name one.

Contrast that with the exponential network of randoms who'd dined in a place I did over 2 weeks.

In the situation we're in now, I'd expect they'd ask you about extended close contact. Not sure how big your building is, but they might contact folks on your floor, for example. It sounds like random grocery store or transmission is rare. They might notify the grocery store of the time you were there or try to track down your checker or something. Not sure.

For restaurants in an initial reopening, it sounds like they'll be gathering contact info of all people coming in anyway? so you wouldn't have to do anything for that and getting in touch with people could be pretty quick.

[michigancat]

cRusty, hopefully you're spending 3x as much time decoupling your company fully from the Chinese Communist Party then you are on here talking about contact tracing and cRusty's Covid-19 Gulags.

yep! Vietnam is fully operational.

[sonofdaxjones]

cRusty, hopefully you're spending 3x as much time decoupling your company fully from the Chinese Communist Party then you are on here talking about contact tracing and cRusty's Covid-19 Gulags.

yep! Vietnam is fully operational.

Well, a slightly less threatening band of commies I suppose.

[DaBigTrain]

Man, Dax is gonna be super sore tomorrow from the dunking on he took today.

[Phil Titola]

https://quillette.com/2020/04/23/covid-19-superspreader-events-in-28-countries-critical-patterns-and-lessons/

[sys]

pretty good plan outta washington.

[Trim]

I think the freak outs are the point.

It brings me back to something I've been curious about re: contact tracing - what's the correct amount of contact to count or be traced?  There can be whole days where I don't have any irl contact with anyone I know and could provide info about, but do have contact with strangers like people I end up stopping and talking to while walking the dog or people I end up closer to than I'd like while in my building (say, delivery people or contractors, not even neighbors whom I could eventually figure out) or randoms in the grocery store. 

I think if I tested positive and was asked who I'd had contact with for a week or so, I'd usually be able to name one.

Contrast that with the exponential network of randoms who'd dined in a place I did over 2 weeks.

In the situation we're in now, I'd expect they'd ask you about extended close contact. Not sure how big your building is, but they might contact folks on your floor, for example. It sounds like random grocery store or transmission is rare. They might notify the grocery store of the time you were there or try to track down your checker or something. Not sure.

For restaurants in an initial reopening, it sounds like they'll be gathering contact info of all people coming in anyway? so you wouldn't have to do anything for that and getting in touch with people could be pretty quick.

Right.  What I think is off is that, for example, I think I've got a greater (albeit still slim) chance of getting it at a grocery store where I'm packed in with people at times and handling the same things others handled vs. at a restaurant where I'm forced apart from others and/or am not even there at the same time.

I agree about how the level they trace for is extended close contact, but I don't see how having been at a restaurant apart from someone, and especially at different times, would fit that standard.  The whole contact tracing thing will go over better with people scared of it if it's consistent and logical.

[michigancat]

Right.  What I think is off is that, for example, I think I've got a greater (albeit still slim) chance of getting it at a grocery store where I'm packed in with people at times and handling the same things others handled vs. at a restaurant where I'm forced apart from others and/or am not even there at the same time.

I think you're wrong about that. You're constantly moving in a grocery store and the times I've been in stores it's been pretty easy to keep my distance and only touch what I buy and wash my hands right when I get home. You and everyone else can wear masks the entire time. Depends on the restaurant setup, but you're more likely to be breathing someone's air, a server is likely talking to you above you with those droplets cascading down to you, you might be facing a bartender, etc. You also probably spend a lot less time in total in a grocery store than a restaurant. I could be wrong though.

I agree about how the level they trace for is extended close contact, but I don't see how having been at a restaurant apart from someone, and especially at different times, would fit that standard.  The whole contact tracing thing will go over better with people scared of it if it's consistent and logical.

I don't think tracing contacts restaurants and not grocery stores is illogical for the reasons above. I also don't understand what you think scares people.

[sys]

there have been some pretty large contagion events at restaurants.

hopefully they would use some judgement in deciding what level of of contact requires what level of remediation.  i think something like - light but traceable contact - notification and proffered testing; medium contact - testing and suggested quarantining until test results (24 hours), retesting available; sustained contact - test, suggested quarantine for7 days and retest.

[Trim]

I also don't understand what you think scares people.

Look through the replies to this:

https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1260389957681573888

[Trim]

hopefully they would use some judgement in deciding what level of of contact requires what level of remediation.  i think something like - light but traceable contact - notification and proffered testing; medium contact - testing and suggested quarantining until test results (24 hours), retesting available; sustained contact - test, suggested quarantine for7 days and retest.

I think something like that would help get buy-in.

[michigancat]

yeah I think people who weren't sitting with you in the restaurant would get an email in the "light but traceable contact" or medium contact range.

[DaBigTrain]

So I’ve been thinking about restaurants opening up. I think a good solution is if you go to a restaurant you can use their app/Grubhub/DoorDash/UberEats whatever to order and pay. The server still brings it out, you can give them a tip when you pay. 

That removes the contact of ordering, server could call out a name when an order is ready. There is a common drop off spot where one at a time the customer goes and picks up their plate and takes it back to their table. Idk. I mean there are ways to keep distance and stuff. The main thing is limiting capacity.

[michigancat]

I also don't understand what you think scares people.

Look through the replies to this:

https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1260389957681573888

lol those people seem really dumb, I wouldn't let them influence policy

[Katpappy]

to be clear, this is the Cal State University system

you can't have a football season without fresno st.

IIRC, they kicked our ass quite a few years back. 

[Trim]

I also don't understand what you think scares people.

Look through the replies to this:

https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1260389957681573888

lol those people seem really dumb, I wouldn't let them influence policy

They won't be allowed to influence policy, but that mindset will reduce the effectiveness of an aspect of the policy - getting people back into restaurants, retail, etc. safely but enough that those businesses can make money.  If there wasn't that goal, everything would stay shut down. 

I've seen already that some of the bigger local restaurant operators are saying they'll pass on trying to operate under this dine-in policy, which sucks for those places' employees.

[michigancat]

I also don't understand what you think scares people.

Look through the replies to this:

https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1260389957681573888

lol those people seem really dumb, I wouldn't let them influence policy

They won't be allowed to influence policy, but that mindset will reduce the effectiveness of an aspect of the policy - getting people back into restaurants, retail, etc. safely but enough that those businesses can make money.  If there wasn't that goal, everything would stay shut down. 

I've seen already that some of the bigger local restaurant operators are saying they'll pass on trying to operate under this dine-in policy, which sucks for those places' employees.

well, I think the point of the policy is stopping the spread of the disease. what will hurt restaurants more than @btownbiker not giving his email to get into BWW is exponential growth positive cases.

If the restaurant policy Inslee proposed is just the gathering contact info and has nothing to do with a capacity limit or concerns about general demand, those restaurants seem pretty dumb for refusing to reopen. Unless they think the contact gathering will keep enough people away to make it not worth it, but if it wasn't there they'd be totally fine? (that also seems dumb)