Contact Tracing--A Little Late

[fairfarmhand]

My kids are getting calls from the Department of Health about their exposure to Covid.

Thing is, we had Covid in early December. 

I little late for contact tracing.

What possible use could it be to be making these calls right now?

[Carrie12345]

I guess I’d want to know, but I haven’t found our system useful.  I got my app alert on the day of dh’s test results.  Let’s say that was Dec. 7th. Well, he had tested around the 4th and had become symptomatic around the 2nd. His exposure was a few days before that. No one who may have been exposed to him before the 7th would have been notified. Not very helpful.

ETA: to be clear, my alert said I was exposed on the 7th. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Carrie12345

[Amy in NH]

DH was exposed twice at work within a 3-month period, and we've never had anyone contact us with any sort of tracing.

[MooCow]

Just to cover their behinds I imagine. We got calls a week and a half after my youngest was exposed, and we were told we had to quarantine; even though I found out immediately from my child how they were exposed, and called the school to ask w/o naming names and they told me I had to wait for the phone call. 

[fairfarmhand]

It just seems like a waste of time for them to be making phone calls at this point.

silly.

unless there’s something I’m not considering.

[Melissa B]

I did calls for our Department of Health over the summer. I was considered a contact tracer, but the information I was gathering was pertaining to what symptoms, their duration, their sequence, their severity, whether there were any reoccurrences, how many other family members were exposed and how many of those actually tested positive for COVID, etc. All of the information remained confidential and went into a larger database. It was for medical/ academic purposes - not specifically to notify others of exposure.

[busymama7]

Well maybe they are trying to figure out the most common places/situations for exposure?

[Junie]

Maybe they were exposed again more recently, only since they had COVID already they were immune and didn't catch it.

[MooCow]

26 minutes ago, Melissa B said:

I did calls for our Department of Health over the summer. I was considered a contact tracer, but the information I was gathering was pertaining to what symptoms, their duration, their sequence, their severity, whether there were any reoccurrences, how many other family members were exposed and how many of those actually tested positive for COVID, etc. All of the information remained confidential and went into a larger database. It was for medical/ academic purposes - not specifically to notify others of exposure.

Ah, that makes more sense! 

[wathe]

35 minutes ago, Melissa B said:

I did calls for our Department of Health over the summer. I was considered a contact tracer, but the information I was gathering was pertaining to what symptoms, their duration, their sequence, their severity, whether there were any reoccurrences, how many other family members were exposed and how many of those actually tested positive for COVID, etc. All of the information remained confidential and went into a larger database. It was for medical/ academic purposes - not specifically to notify others of exposure.

Yes, data collection.  Also data like ethnicity, multigenerational home, occupation - much of the data needed to drive policy decisions are collected during contact tracing.