If anybody is interested in how contact tracing is actually supposed to work, please take a look at @tripperhead.
Aaron is a fucking superstar of data. A hero in Hong Kong. Keeping everyone informed.
Anyway ... Just read the first fifty tweets (from the last 24 hours*,) to understand how TTI (test, trace, isolate) is supposed to work - both forwards and backwards.
(*EDIT: Wow! Fuck the last 24 hours! Just read the fifty tweets from the last HOUR (before 3:30am HK time on 21/01/2021 (I know, I know, bed for me now, NOW)! It will astonish you! Contact tracing. As it should be done. Even if it's too late now and further, harsh, restrictions will ensue. It's still impressive. Read it! ... Night!)
A data collator supremo. A hero.
Contact tracing is essentially - and has to be - an intensely detailed, hands on, painstaking, local-community-driven, society-wide, human resource heavy, expensive, local boots-on-the-ground, local languages (Cantonese, English, Mandarin, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, Urdu, Hindu, Thai, etc. etc.), boot leather, door-knocking exercise. A public sector, public health initiative comprising local civil servants - from every sector - and incorporating community organisations to ensure local sensibilities are addressed and catered for.
Sure, there's a govt. APP, but that's an add on and, frankly, irrelevant to the test and trace initiative. Next to worthless.
In Hong Kong, it's being handled entirely within the Public Health Service. No sub-contracting.
Despite the meticulous attention to detail, however, (which has left us largely immune to any broad-sweeping, local restrictions for the better part of a year,) I fear that the emergence of Omicron in the community will overwhelm the capacity of our abilities to continue an effective TTI initiative.
And that will, inevitably, lead to further restrictions, ordered by Beijing. The Olympics is sacrosanct - and anyway Hong Kong needs punishing now it's been brought to book. The "International City" needs to be extinguished.
Oh well.
We tried.
What did the UK's test and trace system achieve?
I understand it was given to a call centre, run by Serco and supported by Deloitte (at huge expense), employing school leavers in call centers on minimum wage.
And cost close to GBP 40 billion of public money to outsource and siphon-off into the pockets of already wealthy corporates.
(That's about four fifths (80%) of a half trillion HKD. HKD 400 billion. Fuck me! In 2020/2021, the total govt. expenditure in HK was HKD 750 billion - and produced a HKD 10 billion surplus! I know it's not comparable but ... still. And I also know that sustaining govt. expenditure at under 20% of GDP for decades will inevitably lead to a Gini Coefficient of .54 and rising and leave 25% of the population below the poverty line and 20% living in circumstances that would, rightly, be described as squalor in the west - and that's for another time - but ... still.)
And to what effect?
What result did UK T&T achieve?
170,000 dead?
Oh boy!
What a fucking world!
I'm getting too old for this shit.
And the Nihilists are on their way again.
Night.
Woof
I was going to edit the above but it took me over the 11,000 count so I'll just leave it here.
(Edit2: I Just wanted to add some broader context to our Test, Trace, Isolate initiatives and our broader anti-virus regime. Firstly, everyone wears a mask, everywhere, when they leave their home until they return home and are indoors. Everywhere; outdoors and indoors, all public transport (only about 6% of people have cars), in kindergarten, primary, secondary, uni, places of education. At work. Shops, businesses, offices, warehouses, factories, etc. etc. EVERYWHERE. All. The. Time. Unless at home or unless sitting down eating. It's been this way since 1st Jan 2020. It started the day we heard news of a new SARS-type virus up north, DESPITE everyone (WHO, our Govt. etc.) advising people not to do so - as a society, we didn't buy that bullshit, we chose to mask up (much to the Govts. annoyance!). And EVERYONE ... from 2 year olds in push chairs up to 95 year old grannies off for Dim Sum. EVERYONE. And, you know what? Nobody has a problem with it. Not toddlers, not pensioners. Sure, it ain't great, but we've been here before (in 2003,) and, although it's lasting longer this time, you get used to it after a few weeks and it's just how it is. For the good of everyone. In summer, when it's 36C and 98% humidity, it's pretty shitty for six months but, for the good of everyone, it's just what it is. If ever (highly unlikely!) someone was sat on a bus (or the tube,) without a mask, the first thing would be somebody gently tapping them on the shoulder, asking them if they're okay and offering them a mask, which would be donned - and that would be the end of it. Were this offer rejected, the next thing that would happen would be someone having a word with the driver, the bus would stop and everybody else on the bus (or tube, at the next stop,) would swiftly eject said individual from the bus/carriage - and that would be the end of it.
This societal discipline certainly goes a long way towards helping but Omicron is so fucking infectious that even universal masking will likely be far less efficacious overall.
We've spent the last several months (from early summer 2021 through early January 2022,) with limited entry to HK (it's 21 days in a government camp residents and non-residents alike - or if your lucky, a designated quarantine hotel - and there you stay, in your room, at your own expense, school-type meals delivered, no exceptions, twenty one days,) and, as a result, were living a Covid-free lifestyle for months, everything open as normal, no virus in the community, all fully masked.
Then, the inevitable happened, on 06/01/22, two weeks ago, a flight crew member (allowed to isolate at home for three days after flying in, before heading straight to the airport and leaving again - an exemption to keep cargo flowing,) snuck out of home for a couple of hours to meet dad for lunch, at the Moon Palace Restaurant, on his 76th birthday; understandable perhaps but ... anyway ... they had Omicron and infected dad and two others at lunch (one was 13 metres away, the other in a separate private room!). This lead to the Moon Palace cluster, which spread to the residential-tower-block cluster (vertically, through the drainpipes,) which lead to the Schools cluster (three schools so far), which lead another tower-block cluster (all over the place through drainpipes and God knows what), which led to the dancing club cluster.
So far, we've traced about 60 infections in total (plus the, unrelated, Hamster cluster, about six people now - and numerous hamsters - it's Delta and unrelated to anything we've seen, and there's been no Delta in the community for many, many, months; strain most closely match to something from the Czech Republic but was it hamster-to-human or human-to-hamster or both or did it sneak in from the mainland and then on to the hamsters or ... something else. The investigation continues).
That's about 60 infections across five or six clusters as of 20th Jan 2022. I expect to see a further 15 - 20 cases today, 21/01/22, when the updates start. As a result of meticulous contact tracing, what has actually been done and what's been achieved?
Our approach has been stringent since the beginning of the pandemic. All tests are Govt. administered PCR tests, no LFTs in use. Anyone who tests positive - no matter if asymptomatic (as most are,) or otherwise - is immediately taken to hospital and installed in a negative pressure room for a minimum of fourteen days + two negative tests. Once virus free, they're taken to a different hospital and monitored and tested daily, for a further ten days and then, all going well, released into the wild again. All close contacts of anyone testing positive (meticulously traced by dedicated and experienced humans, forwards and backwards, family, friends, work colleagues, anyone on a bus route they used, a restaurant they were at, a gym they went to, a church, someone else's home, you name it ... they are ALL rounded up and taken off to a government quarantine camp, where they stay in their room for 21 days and are fed, tested daily and, if still virus free, released back into the wild after 21 days. This may also be applied to some close contacts of close contacts, depending upon the particular epidemiological scenario. Anyone else who may, even most remotely, have had any chance of any contact - even passing in the street if we can find them (and all close contacts of close contacts,) - are required to report for testing, usually on days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 14 and 19 and then done (assuming not positive; if so, see above).
To be continued ...
(Edit: LFTs, not LTFs.)
Woof
