International Flight, CDC, and Contact Tracing

[Bootsie]

I returned to the US from Europe earlier this week.  We were given a form to fill out on the flight that included our seat number, our email address, our final destination in US, and our phone number.  When the flight arrived, would could not get off the plane until someone from the CDC came on the plane and made an announcement that went something like "You have traveled from a place with wide spread of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus.  Some symptoms of this disease are fever and a cough.  You should stay home and monitor your health for 14 days."  Then as we stepped off the plane, there was a line of CDC workers, all wearing hazmat styled masks.  One person collected our sheets.  Another person handed us a card.  

This card has the sentence "For information about COVID-19 and how to monitor your health after travel, open your cell phone camera and scan this code."  Then there is this printed in 13 different languages.  There is a QR code that takes you to the CDC website.  The opposite side of the card says "Stop the Spread of COVID-19.  Do your part.  For 14 days after your trip:  Stay home. Monitor your health."  This is a slick, multi-color card that also has two pictures.  One of hands of a person holding a thermometer. The other is a woman at a kitchen counter on a laptop with a toddler sitting on the counter holding an I-pad and a kindergarten-aged looking girl standing nearby staring at a cell phone.  

On one hand they looked as if it was very risky to be near us, but on the other hand, they had a lot of people there just standing near us doing nothing.  I never saw the person who came on the plane to make the announcement.  Couldn't this have been done remotely without the person entering the plane?  It seemed to be, at best, an unproductive use of resources, and perhaps unnecessary exposure of more people.  

Three days  after my return I got two phone calls with recorded messages, one in English and one in Spanish, from my state depart of health.  I also got a text message.  The text message said "Please stay home for 14 days."  The phone message elaborated a bit more saying that if I were to start feeling sick, most cases can just be treated at home and if I started feeling really bad to call my doctor or if it was an emergency 911.  Basically, if I felt I had a mild case of COVID-19, I wasn't even supposed to call my doctor or report it to anyone. 

So much for all of the contact info on the form we gave them.  If several people realized they had mild cases several days after the flight this info would not be tracked and others on the flight would not be warned.  Why in a situation where you have gone to the trouble of gathering contact info would you not want to make it a priority to use that contact info and learn more about the spread of this disease?  

I talked to a relative who is working in contact tracing in my state.  She said that it isn't clear what the relationship between the contract tracing at the state level and the CDC is.  So, if someone on the flight did get sick and thought they were sick enough to call their doctor, and then got tested, and the test was positive, especially if they were in another state, I would probably never be contacted.  

It is amazing to me how after three months of major disruption, how ineffectively we are using resources to do any contact tracing and learn more about the spread. 

 

[maize]

Also, given how widespread covid-19 is in the US at this point, I'm not sure singling out people traveling from overseas is of much benefit anymore.

[Bootsie]

9 minutes ago, maize said:

Also, given how widespread covid-19 is in the US at this point, I'm not sure singling out people traveling from overseas is of much benefit anymore.

Especially when I was coming from a place with a lower incidence than there is in the US. 

I think there is still a lot to learn about  how much COVID-19 can spread throughout an aircraft that can't be learned if you do not have people report mild cases.  

[Lanny]

The first known case of Covid-19 here in Colombia was from a man who arrived on a flight from Spain. The government here has us on lockdown. There are no Domestic flights yet and International flights are prohibited until at least September 1st. The simulations I have seen about how the virus might spread, inside a Civil Turbojet aircraft, or for example in a Supermarket, are extremely scary. Here, we know the dangers of virus spread inside Civil Turbojet aircraft.

The occasional "Humanitarian" flights to the USA that the ACS in the U.S. Embassy  sends emails about shows those flights are for U.S. Citizens or Permanent Resident Aliens (Green card holders) and not for people who have been in China or Iran or in most of Europe during the past 14 days. I believe people from the E.U. who are not U.S. Citizens are not allowed to enter the USA at this time but am not sure about that.

I suspect the CDC and or the airline give the contact information they received from the passengers to the State Health Dept. and obviously all of the information gathering in your case could have been done more efficiently.

[Bootsie]

2 hours ago, Lanny said:

I suspect the CDC and or the airline give the contact information they received from the passengers to the State Health Dept. and obviously all of the information gathering in your case could have been done more efficiently.

I flew into Atlanta but then on to Texas, so I am sure that it was the CDC that provided info to the Texas health department.  It isn't so much that the gathering of the info is not being done efficiently, it is that info is being gathered but nothing effective is being done with the info once it is gathered.  

[chiguirre]

3 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Three days  after my return I got two phone calls with recorded messages, one in English and one in Spanish, from my state depart of health.  I also got a text message.  The text message said "Please stay home for 14 days."  The phone message elaborated a bit more saying that if I were to start feeling sick, most cases can just be treated at home and if I started feeling really bad to call my doctor or if it was an emergency 911.  Basically, if I felt I had a mild case of COVID-19, I wasn't even supposed to call my doctor or report it to anyone. 

For the state of Texas, lower numbers are better numbers. I think the CDC might be a bit bipolar about this. Politically, they'd prefer not to have to count as many cases as possible. But, then there's the whole public health thing that is their mission so they're still pretending to care about the spread of Covid.

In my local area, a nursing home just didn't report Covid deaths for a few weeks. When the cases finally came through, Harris County put them in quarantine, but much too late, of course. It raises the question of how many nursing homes are skating by without public health officials noticing their outbreaks?

https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/2020/06/06/harris-county-places-humble-nursing-home-under-quarantine-order-after-at-least-13-residents-die-from-covid-19/

HUMBLE – A Humble nursing home was hit with a quarantine order after a rash of COVID-19 related deaths were reported. The order was issued Thursday by the Harris County Public Health Department against the Oakmont Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Humble.

Dr. Umair Shah, the executive director of the Harris County Public Health Department, said he was particularly bothered by delays in reporting COVID related deaths.

 

“If you’ve got an untoward consequence, you make it known. You don’t delay,” said Shah. “There were at times two or three weeks before the deaths were reported.”

Shah said at least 13 residents died from COVID-19 at the facility and a 14th case is under review. Shah said 56 residents and staff are also currently being monitored for COVID-19.

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, happysmileylady said:

Welcome to security theater 

Yeah.....I don't think the US actually WANTS to have accurate information, nor does it particularly care about getting the pandemic under control.  

[Melissa in Australia]

9 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Yeah.....I don't think the US actually WANTS to have accurate information, nor does it particularly care about getting the pandemic under control.  

That is reflected in the number of cases

[Melissa in Australia]

Here the borders are closed. There are stlll a few flights of return g citize s. They are put into hotels for 14 days, with police and guards maki g sure they don't sneek out. 

I laughed the other day whe. China announced a travel warning for people travel g for a holiday to Australia. Our borders are closed so nobody is coming for a holiday anyway 

 

[Terabith]

3 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

That is reflected in the number of cases

Well, to be fair, it could be just complete incompetence.  But I don't think it is.  Actually, I think it's part of our culture of systemic racism.  

[Shoeless]

19 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Well, to be fair, it could be just complete incompetence.  But I don't think it is.  Actually, I think it's part of our culture of systemic racism.  

 

Absolutely. 

[*****]

Why can't we be like Hawaii and insist on total quarantine?  I heard they check people and look for them if not found in their rooms.  I might get a lot of push back on this as it 'infringes our rights'.  Oh, and it costs money to keep track of people... well, we can figure out a way. People are out of work, so why not create positions where they track and check on the people who flew here? Do something that makes us seem more intelligent...are they keeping track of contact numbers in case someone on the plane came down with it, so the people on that flight can be contacted?  I would think at least this would be done, that is easy...just venting...

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, ***** said:

Why can't we be like Hawaii and insist on total quarantine?  I heard they check people and look for them if not found in their rooms.  I might get a lot of push back on this as it 'infringes our rights'.  Oh, and it costs money to keep track of people... well, we can figure out a way. People are out of work, so why not create positions where they track and check on the people who flew here? Do something that makes us seem more intelligent...are they keeping track of contact numbers in case someone on the plane came down with it, so the people on that flight can be contacted?  I would think at least this would be done, that is easy...just venting...

I think there are some middle of the road measures that could be taken that are not extremely costly or invasive to people's privacy.  At this point, I doubt a major source of transmission is American citizens returning to the US from Europe.  I don't see that it would be particularly useful to track and monitor the coming and going of people who have flown, but I am struggling to see the usefulness of collecting the contact info (which they did) and then telling people not to contact anyone if they have a mild case.  I would want to know if someone else on the flight ended up sick, not just if they had a severe case.    

[ktgrok]

6 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Especially when I was coming from a place with a lower incidence than there is in the US. 

I think there is still a lot to learn about  how much COVID-19 can spread throughout an aircraft that can't be learned if you do not have people report mild cases.  

Yup. 

This kind of stuff is why I roll my eyes when "they" say, "we don't know of any cases transmitted by XYZ". yeah well you don' tknow how MOST of the cases were transmitted, so how WOULD you know?