By Cliff Montgomery – Aug. 29th, 2020
The Coronavirus – also known as COVID-19 – has killed more people in the United States than in any other nation in the world and its people also have suffered the highest number of infections, according to data obtained from Johns Hopkins University.
Clearly, we’re doing something wrong.
One of our major problems is that the current occupant of the White House routinely treats science and logic with open contempt – it’s a bit like living in Europe during the Dark Ages. The inevitable result is that viruses have a field day and run wild among the populace.
We may not yet have a vaccine to eliminate COVID-19. But those of us who remember the occasional benefits of employing science and logic to solve our problems know that these handy activities may still empower us to lessen the effects of the virus.
One possible logical activity is known as contact tracing.
“Contact tracing is a classic tool of public health investigation used to identify the close contacts of persons infected with a communicable disease, notify them of potential exposure, and enable control measures such as quarantining exposed persons,” stated a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) release on the subject.
If you’ve read American Spark articles in the past, you know that “CRS serves as non-partisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of Congress,” according to one CRS self-description.
Those of a certain age will probably remember that contact tracing was successfully used in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s to help control the spread of the AIDS virus.
One last thing: We feel the need to remind people during these confusing times that science and logic are, by their very nature, incapable of being ‘politicized’. Objective facts cannot be politicized. Only denials of objective fact are politicized acts.
Thus by definition, there is no such thing as an ‘alternative fact’.
So if we ignore the benefits of contact tracing, we do so at our continued peril.
Below, the American Spark quotes a major segment of the short CRS release:
“Contact tracing is a classic tool of public health investigation used to identify the close contacts of persons infected with a communicable disease, notify them of potential exposure, and enable control measures such as quarantining exposed persons. Contact tracing programs are generally subject to state, territorial, tribal, and local laws and policies.
“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assists jurisdictions’ programs by providing guidance, technical assistance, and funding. Several public health experts affiliated with universities (e.g., Johns Hopkins University), policy research organizations (e.g., American Enterprise Institute), and state associations (e.g., National Governors Association) have posited that contact tracing (combined with adequate diagnostic testing) could help prevent surges in infections, particularly when case counts are low.
“Contact tracing to control Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19 has been used with arguable success in countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Iceland, and New Zealand—many attribute their relatively low reported case counts, in part, to successful contact tracing.
“However, several experts assert that a successful contact tracing effort in the United States would require additional workforce and possibly the use of new technologies by jurisdictions.Federalism has led to heterogeneous contact tracing efforts across states. As the pandemic progresses, Congress may consider whether and how to guide U.S. contact tracing efforts.
What is Contact Tracing?
“Contact tracing, a component of public health investigation, is a core tool of communicable disease control. U.S. jurisdictions’ public health departments have used contact tracing to help control the spread of diseases like HIV and tuberculosis.
“Typically, when a confirmed case of a disease is identified and determined to require a case investigation, public health departments contact the patient and conduct extensive interviews to acquire information about persons with whom the patient may have been in contact and therefore possibly exposed to the disease.
“Those individuals are then notified by either the patient or the health department and then referred for testing, prophylaxis, and/or treatment (if available) or asked/required to self-quarantine (depending on the applicable jurisdiction’s laws and policies).
“Contacts are usually informed by health departments of a potential disease exposure, but are not given the identity of the individual who exposed them.
COVID-19 Specific Considerations
“Given that COVID-19 spreads easily from person to person and can be transmitted by asymptomatic individuals, controlling COVID-19 may require more robust contact tracing capacity than existed in many jurisdictions prior to the pandemic.
“In addition, given the lack of available vaccines or prophylaxis for COVID-19, health departments usually request that exposed individuals voluntarily self-quarantine and may conduct regular follow-up and/or facilitate housing and other support programs for quarantine.
“Experts generally advocate two approaches to expanding U.S contact tracing—expanding the contact tracing workforce and the use of new technologies to help identify and notify potential contacts.
“Some domestic COVID-19 contact tracing efforts have faced initial challenges with individuals refusing to share information with health departments, indicating potential individual liberty and privacy considerations.”
