There were a lot of stories this past week about how badly contact tracing of positive COVID-19 cases was going in Florida:
Three weeks after committing $14 million for the Department of Health to boost contact tracers for COVID-19 in Miami-Dade, the state has added 50 disease investigators to 300 already working to trace new infections in Florida’s hardest hit county. https://t.co/6uu1uWuyjk
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) July 31, 2020
And mayors in hard-hit Miami-Dade county called on Gov. Ron DeSantis to improve things:
Miami Beach mayor sends letter to Gov. DeSantis urging him to improve Florida’s contact tracing program in Miami-Dade County https://t.co/w21q7iMfxu
— NBC 6 South Florida (@nbc6) July 27, 2020
Well, it’s going to be hard to improve on it when people won’t even pick up the phone or cooperate:
Miami Beach mayor says Florida DOH is only successfully contact tracing about *18 percent* of confirmed cases in the county in mid-July. Says rest are either not reached or reached but closed because of a wrong number or uncooperative patient. https://t.co/99Fy4DS2Ml
— Langston Taylor (@langstonitaylor) July 27, 2020
And this isn’t a problem you can just blame on a Republican-led state. Los Angeles County is having similar problems:
Hampered by a range of factors, L.A. County’s contact tracing system has repeatedly failed to find workplace outbreaks before they spread widely.
And many experts agree life can’t go back to normal until contact tracing improves dramatically. ?⬇️https://t.co/Jkd6Q7jV9h
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 31, 2020
You know, if Dems would stop bashing Republican governors, maybe they could work together and try to improve this?
Of the people reached by contact tracers in recent weeks, only 40% of them have been willing to disclose who they may have gotten sick.
“We believe this is because people are fearful of losing their housing, their jobs and their relationships.”https://t.co/Jkd6Q7jV9h
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 31, 2020
This is . . . not good:
There are the slow turnaround times, the language barriers and the uncooperative employers. Many of those getting sick are low-wage workers who fear financial ruin if they stop working and are too afraid of retaliation to report unsafe work conditions.https://t.co/Jkd6Q72khJ
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 31, 2020
And now our kids can’t go back to school? Wonderful:
The hesitation of patients to reveal their employer to contact tracers is one reason the county did not get an early warning as the coronavirus swept through the Farmer John plant this spring, officials say. https://t.co/hN1jEfxIo4
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 31, 2020
Do better, please:
The county’s contact tracers also failed for months to discover an outbreak at the construction site of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the Rams and Chargers will play.https://t.co/rhULHR77xM
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 31, 2020
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