Contact Tracing Diary |
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Our contacts are viable information in the fight against the spearding of the COVID-19 virus. It can safe lives! Start today and document your contacts
Wherever you are located, we are all dealing with the direct or
indirect impact of the COVID-19 virus.
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The virus is spread primarily through droplets of saliva of an infectious person. According to recent medical studies, a person infected with COVID-19 is infectious two days before and 14 days after the patient shows any symptoms of a COVID-10 infection or receives a positive COVID-10 test. Unfortunately, it has been proven that there were cases in which the virus spread from a person with unspecific or no symptoms (asymptomatic) for a COVID-19 infection.
In the unfortunate case, that you, one of your family members, friends or colleagues have contracted COVID-19, contact tracing is necessary to stop the virus from spreading. This means to trace back all contacts among an infected person, the patient, for the amount of time he/she was potentially infectious and able to infect others. Contact tracing has been done for centuries during other pandemics and is the key method in containing the virus from spreading. People that are (potentially) infected can be contacted at an early stage of the disease and go into self-quarantine and take respective other measures such as taking a COVID-19 test, self-monitor symptoms and perform contact tracing themselves by informing their contacts about a possible infection.
Due to the huge number of COVID-19 infections worldwide, it is one of the public health authority’s biggest challenge at the moment to perform the contact tracing. Especially close contact to people, which is defined as a contact for more than 15 minutes over a 24 hours period within a distance of 2 meter (6 feet). In Germany, for example, it is estimated that about 40-80 percent of all infection chains cannot be traced back due to missing or wrong information about recent contacts.
Apart from tracing mobile apps that are using Bluetooth technology to transfer personal tokens between phones that are only available in a few countries, you can take it in your own hands and write down all your contacts. The German Robert-Koch Institute suggest to document all your contacts, especially those in larger groups and enclosed spaces by writing down the date, time, location, and, if possible name of the contact person. You can use an app, or simply the 100% data security proof solution: a piece of paper. By putting the paper on your door, you can remind yourself every time you come home to take a few seconds and note down all details of your contacts. Writing down your every day contacts will also help you understand, if a particular situation in a shop or with your friends was safe enough and you can learn from your experiences.