Contact tracing of coronavirus runs into a significant problem in Baltimore with patients refusing to answer questions/phone calls

[Deleted member 3812]

Here's a highly troubling article reporting about contact tracing of the coronavirus running into a significant problem in Baltimore:

Baltimore City Officials Say Some Coronavirus Patients Not Answering Calls, Questions From Contact Tracers

Baltimore city officials said contact tracers, trying to track the path of the coronavirus spread, are having issues getting in touch with positive patients -- and when they do they aren't getting answers.

baltimore.cbslocal.com

Baltimore City Officials Say Some Coronavirus Patients Not Answering Calls, Questions From Contact Tracers

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore city officials said contact tracers, trying to track the path of the coronavirus spread, are having issues getting in touch with positive patients — and when they do they aren't getting answers.

City Health Commissioner Letitia Dzirasa said contact tracers are having difficulties collecting information from positive coronavirus patients in the city. She said the city cannot be successful in its tracking if patients don't answer the questions accurately.

"Right now contact traces from the Baltimore City Health Department and the Maryland Department of Health are in the process of reaching out to residents who have tested positive for COVID-19. They're reaching out to ask about their movements during the time they were able to spread disease, and to ask them about the people that may have been in close contact with," she said. "Our teams reporting that some residents are choosing not to answer the call or refusing to provide the information being asked."

She said it is both for the safety of city residents and for the eventual reopening of the city, that residents who receive the calls take them seriously.

"Please answer the phone when you get the contact tracing calls, please answer the questions honestly and be sure to provide the information that our contact traces are asking for these calls are confidential," she added, "and we would never ask residents for their social security number credit card information or immigration status."

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[Marcus Aurelius]

Can't have Coronavirus if you can't hear them telling you

 

[StraySheep]

This country is just not capable of behaving appropriately in a crisis like this.

 

[KtotheRoc]

Americans are that character in a zombie movie who doesn't tell anyone they got bitten.

 

[Pirateluigi]

Americans are that character in a zombie movie who doesn't tell anyone they got bitten.

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This is the best analogy I've seen on it.

 

[Lkr]

How do you know if they're calling? With all the spam robocalls out there, my phone automatically ignores any caller not in my contact list. Do they leave a voicemail with a callback?

 

[klastical]

Turns out people stop trusting the government after years of police brutality. I totally understand why these people dont want to give out that sort of info for free.

Edit: just to be clear. I'm not saying its smart to ignore the calls. I'm saying I understand the mindset that leads to not wanting to tell people where you've been and who you have been hanging out with.

 

[sonnyboy]

<--- Lives in Baltimore.

I can see there being an enormous amount of fear, distrust and anxiety in the black community as it pertains to providing any information to officials of any nature. I'm not saying it's right but I understand the reluctance. Look no further than what the NYPD is doing. This country only has itself to blame for the lack of trust it's citizens have in it's effort to help.

It's just a culmination of years of neglect IMHO. These folks are largely living in poverty, they've been failed by the legal system, the medical system, the education system, the judicial system... LOL we could go on all day. Now all of a sudden you want these folks to have the capacity to trust that you have their best interest at heart and believe you'll do right by them... Nope. It's not gonna work.

 

[krazen]

Turns out people stop trusting the government after years of police brutality. I totally understand why these people dont want to give out that sort of info for free.

Edit: just to be clear. I'm not saying its smart to ignore the calls. I'm saying I understand the mindset that leads to not wanting to tell people where you've been and who you have been hanging out with.

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<--- Lives in Baltimore.

I can see there being an enormous amount of fear, distrust and anxiety in the black community as it pertains to providing any information to officials of any nature. I'm not saying it's right but I understand the reluctance. Look no further than what the NYPD is doing. This country only has itself to blame for the lack of trust it's citizens have in it's effort to help.

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YUP. Considering the history I wouldn't even say that theIr fears are unfounded. You tell a tracer you hung out with ya cousin Jojo who lives at XXX, a few months later there's a no knock raid for an old warrant (public intoxication) at Jojo's address because someone didn't see the harm in passing the police the file.

 

[Shadybiz]

How do you know if they're calling? With all the spam robocalls out there, my phone automatically ignores any caller not in my contact list. Do they leave a voicemail with a callback?

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Pretty much exactly my thought. I don't answer calls from random numbers. Only exception is if I applied for a job recently and am hoping for a call from the HR department. They should consider a text alert, because that's more likely to be seen.

 

[Devilgunman]

Contact tracing will fail miserably in US. You can't rely on interviews to do it. China, South Korea, Singapore and many other countries use agressive public surveillance to trace the contact, which is something that cannot be done in the US because people would be up and arm about their privacy being violated.

To keep pandemic under control, there must be a certain level of trust between citizens and people in charge. That's something that the US never had.

 

[Deleted member 3812]

Contact tracing will fail miserably in US. You can't rely on interviews to do it. China, South Korea, Singapore and many other countries use agressive public surveillance to trace the contact, which is something that cannot be done in the US because people would be up and arm about their privacy being violated.

To keep pandemic under control, there must be a certain level of trust between citizens and people in charge. That's something that the US never had.

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And this will be a significant problem involving contact tracing in all future pandemics as well.

 

[Senator Rains]

To keep pandemic under control, there must be a certain level of trust between citizens and people in charge. That's something that the US never had.

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One and done. I mean, let's be real, you think all citizens in some other city will be completely straightforward with their answers?

 

[Deleted member 3812]

<--- Lives in Baltimore.

I can see there being an enormous amount of fear, distrust and anxiety in the black community as it pertains to providing any information to officials of any nature. I'm not saying it's right but I understand the reluctance. Look no further than what the NYPD is doing. This country only has itself to blame for the lack of trust it's citizens have in it's effort to help.

It's just a culmination of years of neglect IMHO. These folks are largely living in poverty, they've been failed by the legal system, the medical system, the education system, the judicial system... LOL we could go on all day. Now all of a sudden you want these folks these folks to have the capacity to trust that you have their best interest at heart and believe you'll do right by them... Nope. It's not gonna work.

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Yep, I also live in Baltimore and I fully understand the reasons behind why people who tested positive for the coronavirus here in Baltimore are highly reluctant to give this sort of information out willingly.

 

[StraySheep]

Contact tracing will fail miserably in US. You can't rely on interviews to do it. China, South Korea, Singapore and many other countries use agressive public surveillance to trace the contact, which is something that cannot be done in the US because people would be up and arm about their privacy being violated.

To keep pandemic under control, there must be a certain level of trust between citizens and people in charge. That's something that the US never had.

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Everyone has tried to figure out why Germany has handled the crisis so much better. Trust in government would be a top 3 reason for sure.

 

[Tygre]

Even if everyone was open and honest when contacted, and there are many understandable reasons to not be for many people, relying on people's memory for this process is wholly inadequate.

If you're having to take people's word in order to track them, you've already failed.

 

[Weeats]

How could anyone trust this insanely private and personal health data to the federal government and/or the telecoms/tech companies?

Contact tracing is totally doomed in America, and, for once, I can't say I blame the people refusing to follow along.

 

[Deleted member 31817]

How could anyone trust this insanely private and personal health data to the federal government and/or the telecoms/tech companies?

Contact tracing is totally doomed in America, and, for once, I can't say I blame the people refusing to follow along.

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Pretty hard to agree with this until I actually see the questions being posed.

Also... some companies already have your location data lol

 

[darkwing]

I guess you can remove trace, from the test, trace, treat strategy

 

[Deleted member 6215]

How could anyone trust this insanely private and personal health data to the federal government and/or the telecoms/tech companies?

Contact tracing is totally doomed in America, and, for once, I can't say I blame the people refusing to follow along.

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When it involves a highly infectious disease that's killed 85,000+ other people in your country, I fail to see how it's "insanely private" anymore.

 

[Hecht]

I figured this would be an issue. I know tons of people who aren't willing to have over personal info to any entity, much less the government, and the government's inability to act well regarding PII isn't really prevalent.
I mean I'll give MY info if needed, but I get why a bunch of people won't.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Even if everyone was open and honest when contacted, and there are many understandable reasons to not be for many people, relying on people's memory for this process is wholly inadequate.

If you're having to take people's word in order to track them, you've already failed.

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It doesn't have to be perfect, they're not trying to trace every single possible infection. Well, they *are*, but they don't expect or need to. Just who do you remember spending an extended amount of time with, and which public locations did you spend a significant amount of time at (office, bar/restaurant, family gatherings). They're trying to catch likely personal interaction infections and potential super spreading events.

Nothing is going to eradicate this, contact tracing is to suppress major outbreaks.

 

[onadesertedisland]

Individualism is a cancer.

 

[Walter White Walker]

It's not just black people refusing to give info to the government. I mean, good luck trying to contact people in places like Eastern Washington for tracing.

 

[CrankyJay]

This country is just not capable of behaving appropriately in a crisis like this.

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This. We are going to have a bad go at this.

 

[Zoe]

How do you know if they're calling? With all the spam robocalls out there, my phone automatically ignores any caller not in my contact list. Do they leave a voicemail with a callback?

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It says even the people they do talk to aren't being forthcoming though.

 

[Weeats]

Pretty hard to agree with this until I actually see the questions being posed.

Also... some companies already have your location data lol

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When it involves a highly infectious disease that's killed 85,000+ other people in your country, I fail to see how it's "insanely private" anymore.

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Boy, ya'll naive about how nefarious this is and how valuable this data is to certain groups.

Example: when Supreme Court ends the ACA at the end of the year or early next year, preexisting conditions will be open season for discrimination again.

So, let's say your 70 and you HAVENT had the coronavirus yet. You would actually be a pretty big liability to your insurer; your potential costs could be astronomical.

So, what does the insurer do? Well, why not lease the coronavirus data that Google and Apple will be collecting and kickoff any potential liabilities.

That is actually a pretty tame example of what companies will do with this data. They won't be able to help themselves.

I mean, seriously, really, like for real, you clowns trust Google or the federal government to do the right or ethical thing?

Grow up.

 

[Deleted member 13101]

On top of everything already mentioned, they've given no protocols to the general public as to what people should do and what they should expect. And we're going to have 50+ versions of contact tracing out there since there is no national leadership, there will be tales of mini-lockdowns and people won't like it, but in NY and CT those things have worked to slow the spread over an 8 week period (we're in the 9th week now).

Someone who is 70 is eligible for medicare so most of the medical liability is with the federal government. Supplemental insurance providers won't drop people over covid, we would have heard about that by now. Congress has already forced the federal government to cover all covid test and treatment costs, though we know there are coding loopholes that still exist. The biggest liability clearly has been if someone has been in prison or in an assisted-living or nursing-home facility.

 

[onyx]

So you call me and want me to tell you where I've been, who I was with, and when? Then after I give your that information you'll likely want the contact information for the people I named. Sounds like a setup.

Yeah, that's not going to happen. I haven't lived in Baltimore for over a decade , but not only do you learn not to trust the government you also learn not to name people and give out their number.

 

[Psittacus]

Man this situation really is all of the US's chickens coming home to roost at once. And whenever I think I've seen them all a few more fly in.

 

[Dragoon]

Americans are that character in a zombie movie who doesn't tell anyone they got bitten.

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lmao

 

[Lkr]

It says even the people they do talk to aren't being forthcoming though.

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I mean I don't wanna speak for others, but it doesn't exactly surprise me citizens of Baltimore don't trust the government with information like this. This is indicative of a larger problem in this country that is only going to get worse. In the past, the white lies of the federal government were accepted by majority of society because we had our bread and circuses combined with no pandemics. Now everything is a lie and reality doesn't exist

 

[Deleted member 19844]

This country is just not capable of behaving appropriately in a crisis like this.

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I think that, fundamentally, this is the truth.

 

[Kthulhu]

I can't really blame people. The government at various levels of this country has done little to get people to trust them.

 

[Cotton McKnight]

This country is just not capable of behaving.

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I fixed it for you.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

<--- Lives in Baltimore.

I can see there being an enormous amount of fear, distrust and anxiety in the black community as it pertains to providing any information to officials of any nature. I'm not saying it's right but I understand the reluctance. Look no further than what the NYPD is doing. This country only has itself to blame for the lack of trust it's citizens have in it's effort to help.

It's just a culmination of years of neglect IMHO. These folks are largely living in poverty, they've been failed by the legal system, the medical system, the education system, the judicial system... LOL we could go on all day. Now all of a sudden you want these folks to have the capacity to trust that you have their best interest at heart and believe you'll do right by them... Nope. It's not gonna work.

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You are 100% right but que all the posts saying people are irresponsible and dumb for not wanting to tell the fucking City of Baltimore all their movements.

Reminds me of the situation in South Korea where people were angry because a bunch of people got infected at a gay club and then people weren't cooperating because the contract tracing was leading to hundreds of gay men being outed in a conservative and oftentimes homophobic society.

This is what happens when you have an extremely racist and homophobic power structure in your society, people have legitimate fear of being harmed by cooperating with you in any way.

 

[minus_me]

I feel like I've heard about similar situations in a bunch of places. I can't imagine Baltimore is the only place this is happening.

 

[Davilmar]

As someone who works in public health, a lot of the early comments here are pretty stupid. Black people have had generations of distrust in law enforcement, local and federal governments. Their lack of cooperation and unwillingness to participate is absolutely reasonable. I try to explain this as a Black epidemiologist, and its often hard getting people to understand why minorities don't respond or trust governments.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

Contact tracing will fail miserably in US. You can't rely on interviews to do it. China, South Korea, Singapore and many other countries use agressive public surveillance to trace the contact, which is something that cannot be done in the US because people would be up and arm about their privacy being violated.

To keep pandemic under control, there must be a certain level of trust between citizens and people in charge. That's something that the US never had.

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South Korea's contact tracung outed a bunch of gay men, so we are already seeing negative outcomes for vulnerable people who willingly participate in the contact tracking process even in the societies you mentioned. Who the hell knows what's going on in China or Singapore, but both countries have extremely strict authoritarian governments so it's likely to be horrifying.

 

[TheOMan]

Americans are that character in a zombie movie who doesn't tell anyone they got bitten.

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LOL - stunned.gif

You're absolutely right.

I used to think that was not good writing. WELP.

Edit: Read the rest of the thread - and yeah, I agree with why people aren't being forthcoming, there is absolutely no reason to think the government or corporations will not burn people in the future with this information. Chickens coming home to roost all at once is correct.

 

[Calamari41]

American culture in general will not allow for the kind of aggressive contact tracing required for this. It simply won't be happening, so another plan should be created. Honestly, anybody talking about Asian-style contact tracing programs is wasting time.

 

[FinKL]

Sounds like the Apple/Google contact tracing will fail miserably even though its a great idea

 

[Sensei]

Man this situation really is all of the US's chickens coming home to roost at once. And whenever I think I've seen them all a few more fly in.

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this is exactly what it is tbh

systemically, the US always finds a chance to punish people or create distrust in all kinds of ways in service of upholding different kinds of inequality. people here have no reason to trust the government with information of any kind