When Lucia Abascal is calling a client, she asks him whether he has a home, and enough food for the next 14 days. “There are a lot of homeless in San Francisco. Not everyone can afford a quarantine,” she says.
Lucia Abascal, who was born in Mexico, and today, as a Doctor in the US works, speaks with clients, often in their native language. “The majority of the vulnerable people in the Bay Area Latinos. Some have to leave the house to work and to provide for their large family. This makes them susceptible to contract the Virus.”
Abascal works as a contact tail or a “Contact Tracer”. It belongs to a 40-person Team in San Francisco, which consists of officials of the public health, Doctors, medicine students, but also from currently unemployed librarians. She calls me contacts of people who are infected with SARS-CoV-2, and arrange Tests for you. If necessary, you can give them food parcels and medicines, or, in the case of homelessness, a hotel room organize.
The right questions
at the beginning of each day Abascal receives a list of people to call you. She works in Four-hour shifts from home. Until recently, clients were without symptoms every day, an automated SMS to check your state of health.
Now all the contacts of an infected Person to be tested twice, at the beginning of their two-week quarantine and at the end, even if the first test result was negative. Each call should last 15 minutes, but often there are more questions than expected. “Some are worried that we will check their immigration status, while others ask whether you can fight the Virus with herbal medicine,” says Abascal.
Abascal is not working using COVID-19-Apps, although a technology company, the Initiative of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the local health authority have repeatedly offered their support. It stores the edited cases with the Open-Source Software, which has proven effective in the fight against Ebola.
poverty overwhelmed App
“Apps can tell you whether or not a Person was at Starbucks, but you can’t tell you whether she has tried in vain to take the test, or whether she has difficulties to provide for their families,” says Abascal. “The Job is too complex, as the technology could take him”.
just as the tech-savvy San Francisco Singapore a contact tracker instead of relying solely on Apps. Edwin Philip has been working since the beginning of February as a “Contact Tracer” in the General Hospital, Singapore. Unlike Lucia Abascal, the calls not yet tested contacts of the Infected, he needs to identify these contacts, first, by providing COVID-19-patient detective questions.
“I ask you, what have you eaten for Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I ask, to whom you have spoken enough, the salt or the ketchup bottle, as long as you with others. This gives me a hint, whom you might have plugged in”. Philip continues, and asks whether they have visited churches, mosques, temples or shopping malls. “Some of them send me photos of all of your Taxi and Restaurant receipts, which are sometimes faded. I need to scan and read,” says Philip.
Vulnerable guest workers in Singapore
If people do not remember everything, speaks to Philip with their spouses. “You look in their calendar, some of them even Excel-tables with all the activities.” Most of the infections occur in the crowded Labor residences, in which 300,000 of the 1.4 million guest workers in the city are housed.
at Least 23,000 of them are infected. Since most of them come from South Asia, fighting Philip with language barriers. To were “the beginning of the outbreak, the most infections were from China, and I, like many Singaporeans speak Chinese. I can, however, not Bengali, and the Translators are in short supply,” says Philip.
As Lucia Abascal in the United States, Philip works with Apps. The Regierungsapp “trace together” is seen as of secondary importance in the Coronavirus-combat. “Contact Tracing” on the phone has been proved to fight infections as effectively, since it was used during the SARS epidemic of 2003. Other Asian countries such as China and South Korea, also rely on the tried and tested method.
“most of The people are in focus”
Bayern have taken since the end of April, around 2,500 contact tracker your new work. One of them is Franziska White. The aspiring civil servant was asked, her training as a legal nurse to interrupt in order to work as a contact tail for the Region Nürnberger Land. To your Job, it is also, to the people their test results. “Most of the people are in focus, if I tell you that you are infected. But you have a lot of questions, and I’m talking an average of a half an hour with them,” she says.
In connection Franziska calls White contacts of the Infected in the last 48 hours. These need to stay 14 days in quarantine. White every day, calls me up and asks how you are health wise. If you develop symptoms that causes a Test at home or in a laboratory.
Even if White polls, only the history of the last two days, and not those of the past two weeks, as in Singapore: not Many people remember more of what you have made. “If the elderly or people with dementia may not remember, I ask the members of your family”. Although she is on the phone all day, enjoys Know their work: “I’m calling the people also, to inform you that your quarantine ends. This is always a beautiful Moment”.
author: Christina zur Nedden
*The post “Corona: Who had contact with whom?” is published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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