CoronaBro Meltdown/SARS-Covid-19 Spitballing Thread

[Trim]

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)

If the sole point was to stop spread of the disease, the government would just keep them shut down and that'd be the end of that.  The government's trying to achieve multiple goals, including getting the economy going a bit too.

Yes, the concerns about the policy also include capacity limits and demand, all pointing to if there's any point in opening.  A portion of that demand concern would be people staying away because of perceived privacy concerns.

Now that I think about it, I imagine that people staying away because of health concerns are the ones who wouldn't care about the information gathering (for health purposes), and the ones staying away because of privacy concerns are the ones who don't give a eff about their health.  So they're for sure not getting the dine in-business of you and bqqkie, and then guessing if there's enough in the middle to open up for.

[michigancat]

I'd absolutely consider going to a restaurant under that policy if the daily new cases in the local region were super low or it had been in place for a couple weeks without a surge in new cases. I can't really wrap my head around a state having manageable contact tracing like Washington seems to so I haven't given it a ton of thought.

[Trim]

[michigancat]

I looked up Inslee's "4 phase plan" and it seems pretty good and similar to California's: https://www.governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/SafeStartWA_4May20.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

but it's crazy that all these governors say they'll look at new case rates, ICU bed availability, ability to contact trace, etc. before moving from 1 phase to the next, but never tell us what the actual numbers are. Like exactly how many new cases per capita lets you go from phase 1 to 2? any idea why they don't want to give numbers?

[michigancat]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

[8manpick]

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.

it's not a particularly good solution for the restaurant to use any of the third party services since it cuts their margins out almost entirely

[star seed 7]

One of our subsidiaries had an employee test positive. Everyone who has had contact within 6ft for more than 10 minutes has been told to stay in isolation.

[Phil Titola]

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.

there have been?  We know of the big one that was studied in China for the A/C but the article I posted last night did not list restaurants has a big SSE situation.

Washington's plan is very close to KCMO but KCMO backed off "requiring" recording of contact info to highly suggesting it.  I don't get the freak out of people, it literally is just going to help your own health.

[Trim]

I looked up Inslee's "4 phase plan" and it seems pretty good and similar to California's: https://www.governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/SafeStartWA_4May20.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

but it's crazy that all these governors say they'll look at new case rates, ICU bed availability, ability to contact trace, etc. before moving from 1 phase to the next, but never tell us what the actual numbers are. Like exactly how many new cases per capita lets you go from phase 1 to 2? any idea why they don't want to give numbers?

Cynically, a combination of not having a truly detailed plan along with not wanting to be committed to set numbers and instead keeping flexibility to modify course for political purposes.

[Trim]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

[Phil Titola]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Been a lot of complaining here from the health director about not having funds to hire more tracers, I don't get how this isn't the go to option.  Switch up some city employee tasks for a month or two to help out and get moving on it.  KC doesn't have enough city workers to do the basic stuff but I think everybody would understand right now if the call center for example was down a couple bodies.

[michigancat]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

[Trim]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

I don't know why governments aren't temp hiring on new civilian workers for this task out of the thousands of unemployed (some temporary too!) people out there.  There are people who have been laid off from their jobs that have a lot of the skill sets already for this work.

[Phil Titola]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

I don't know why governments aren't temp hiring on new civilian workers for this task out of the thousands of unemployed (some temporary too!) people out there.  There are people who have been laid off from their jobs that have a lot of the skill sets already for this work.

Yeah it seems like a very easy job to plug people into remotely.  It's basically just talking to the sick person and who they contacted and calling them.  I'm sure there are some HIPAA impacts, etc. but those are pretty easy for almost everybody to follow as long as they know what to say and not say.  For example you don't tell the person you are contacting who they may have gotten it from.

Honestly I don't know why we don't teach individuals how to do this themselves.  Give them a checklist to go through if they are positive.  If you are doing the basic guidelines of not going out much it's probably like 3-5 contacts.  Maybe the grocery store giving them a heads up regarding the cashier you used?  They seems pretty well protected now at our stores though.

[michigancat]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

I don't know why governments aren't temp hiring on new civilian workers for this task out of the thousands of unemployed (some temporary too!) people out there.  There are people who have been laid off from their jobs that have a lot of the skill sets already for this work.

California is training dedicated tracers, but most states don't have the money and the feds are in the process of maybe coming up with a plan for the fall.

What needs to happen is the federal government works with each state to figure out how many contract tracers they need and giving them the money for 18 months worth of it. This should have happened two months ago and revisited a month later. You're right that a lot of folks in the service industry could be good at this.

[DQ12]

Handy google sheet tracking 7 day averages of deaths/new cases/tests:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k_QmWvmQOEYNZM70fbnO82vAg4n903Mb3chyHV_SCPE/edit#gid=0

[Trim]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

I don't know why governments aren't temp hiring on new civilian workers for this task out of the thousands of unemployed (some temporary too!) people out there.  There are people who have been laid off from their jobs that have a lot of the skill sets already for this work.

California is training dedicated tracers, but most states don't have the money and the feds are in the process of maybe coming up with a plan for the fall.

What needs to happen is the federal government works with each state to figure out how many contract tracers they need and giving them the money for 18 months worth of it. This should have happened two months ago and revisited a month later. You're right that a lot of folks in the service industry could be good at this.

It wouldn't be an exact 1:1 offset, and of course it's coming from different buckets, but hiring unemployed people now for these gigs would both reduce the unemployment money going out and slightly alleviate the stress on the unemployment department.

[ben ji]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

I don't know why governments aren't temp hiring on new civilian workers for this task out of the thousands of unemployed (some temporary too!) people out there.  There are people who have been laid off from their jobs that have a lot of the skill sets already for this work.

Sounds good in theory but I bet the unemployed person is making more money at home on unemployment with the extra $600 a week than they would make being a contact tracer (and much less likely to get exposed ).

[michigancat]

Yeah it seems like a very easy job to plug people into remotely.  It's basically just talking to the sick person and who they contacted and calling them.  I'm sure there are some HIPAA impacts, etc. but those are pretty easy for almost everybody to follow as long as they know what to say and not say.  For example you don't tell the person you are contacting who they may have gotten it from.

Honestly I don't know why we don't teach individuals how to do this themselves.  Give them a checklist to go through if they are positive.  If you are doing the basic guidelines of not going out much it's probably like 3-5 contacts.  Maybe the grocery store giving them a heads up regarding the cashier you used?  They seems pretty well protected now at our stores though.

In theory you could let individuals do it themselves, but I'm pretty sure a big part of the job is the interview process - jogging the patient's memory, helping them track down exact times they were in certain places, helping find contact info, etc. Also you have to consider someone who doesn't speak English or speak English very well or has limited access to the internet.

I don't know much about it but I think the more involved someone is with the tracing, the better the results. Like dax's contact tracing form they sent him home with is better than nothing, but it won't be as effective as someone trained interviewing cases and reaching out to contacts

[Trim]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

I don't know why governments aren't temp hiring on new civilian workers for this task out of the thousands of unemployed (some temporary too!) people out there.  There are people who have been laid off from their jobs that have a lot of the skill sets already for this work.

Sounds good in theory but I bet the unemployed person is making more money at home on unemployment with the extra $600 a week than they would make being a contact tracer (and much less likely to get exposed ).

Good point.  Factoring that in along with how important this gig apparently is, it should probably pay a lot relatively to be attractive.

[sonofdaxjones]

Hot spots emerging in South Korea, China locking down cities (again) and don't forget to take your Vitamin D



https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507121353.htm

[Phil Titola]

Yeah it seems like a very easy job to plug people into remotely.  It's basically just talking to the sick person and who they contacted and calling them.  I'm sure there are some HIPAA impacts, etc. but those are pretty easy for almost everybody to follow as long as they know what to say and not say.  For example you don't tell the person you are contacting who they may have gotten it from.

Honestly I don't know why we don't teach individuals how to do this themselves.  Give them a checklist to go through if they are positive.  If you are doing the basic guidelines of not going out much it's probably like 3-5 contacts.  Maybe the grocery store giving them a heads up regarding the cashier you used?  They seems pretty well protected now at our stores though.

In theory you could let individuals do it themselves, but I'm pretty sure a big part of the job is the interview process - jogging the patient's memory, helping them track down exact times they were in certain places, helping find contact info, etc. Also you have to consider someone who doesn't speak English or speak English very well or has limited access to the internet.

I don't know much about it but I think the more involved someone is with the tracing, the better the results. Like dax's contact tracing form they sent him home with is better than nothing, but it won't be as effective as someone trained interviewing cases and reaching out to contacts

good point.  I'm thinking as an interim step as we get this ramped up (which should have been done in March like you said).

I have some unemployed friends right now that would do this for free if the city would offer it, just to help out the greater good, and then they get to keep their unemployment.

[Institutional Control]

My company had our first "Coming back to the office" call today. We're going to be put on shifts, 1 week at the office -2 weeks at home.  No more than 34% employees in the office at one time. 

[LickNeckey]

Also they completely stopped contact tracing in King County on March 5 because there were too many cases? Did they just go home or what?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/washington-has-1371-trained-officials-ready-to-begin-contact-tracing-on-the-coronavirus-inslee-says/

Both in the King Co. situation and in the newly announced 1371 statewide contact tracers, those aren't new hires hired to be working this specific task.  They're existing government employees given this task as a job duty temporarily.  My guess in that prior King Co. situation is that the work was too overwhelming for the few who'd been given that temporary task and someone determined the better use of their time was to do their primary job rather than flail at the temporary one.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense

I don't know why governments aren't temp hiring on new civilian workers for this task out of the thousands of unemployed (some temporary too!) people out there.  There are people who have been laid off from their jobs that have a lot of the skill sets already for this work.

Yeah it seems like a very easy job to plug people into remotely.  It's basically just talking to the sick person and who they contacted and calling them.  I'm sure there are some HIPAA impacts, etc. but those are pretty easy for almost everybody to follow as long as they know what to say and not say.  For example you don't tell the person you are contacting who they may have gotten it from.

Honestly I don't know why we don't teach individuals how to do this themselves.  Give them a checklist to go through if they are positive.  If you are doing the basic guidelines of not going out much it's probably like 3-5 contacts.  Maybe the grocery store giving them a heads up regarding the cashier you used?  They seems pretty well protected now at our stores though.

It's almost like we need some small technological device (small enough to fit in someones pocket) that could track someones location and chart that data autonomosuly.

what if...

[sonofdaxjones]

A seal is broken and a plaque of locusts descends upon Arizona

https://twitter.com/marlo_safi/status/1260596769626472449?s=20