Remembering Two Weeks Back

“Can you name every person you were within six feet of in the past two weeks?” That is the question I received from one of my high school friends when I posted an early version of self-directed contact tracing on Facebook a while back. China’s success at stopping the spread of the coronavirus depended heavily upon contact tracing to identify and quarantine all infected or exposed (1).

My friend had a very valid question. I mean, I have a rough time remembering what I ate yesterday. How am I supposed to recall people I had been in contact with over the last two weeks? Of course, this would the best time to implement self-directed contact tracing since most people have been under restricted movement policies for weeks now and have been around very few others. This lower volume will result in fewer related calls to notify others if you catch the COVID-19 disease.

So, I took her question to heart and tried to do the tracing myself, and it took a little while (about 20 minutes), and I am not sure if I remembered everyone. I logged them in a new note on my iPhone. The numbers were relatively low since our family has been pretty good at staying home. Most of the list was of businesses I had visited over the past two weeks, but I will cover that topic in a separate post a little later.

To help jog your memory during contact tracing, I would suggest reviewing your calendar, texts, calls, emails, social media posts, and photos of the previous two weeks. You could also review credit card statements to see the places you visited, which could help remember people you may have seen. Feel free to add to this list in the comments.

The final answer to my friend’s remembering question is, “no.” I cannot remember everyone I was near in the past two weeks. However, I can remember many, and if I notify those folks after catching the coronavirus, they could self-quarantine and significantly limit the spread of the virus. The few missed that later catch the disease could trace at that point. It is in our collective best interest to remember as many as we can.

If you want to be proactive, you can do what I have been doing since I created that initial contact list. I have been logging people and places by date ever since, so I have an ongoing contact list readily available. Of course, not many are as meticulous as me.

As always, take care and stay safe!
Jeff

#SelfDirectedContactTracing

SOURCE (1) “Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19),” (World Health Organization, 24 February 2020). https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf