Some Things I Forgot

Since it is so much harder to work with Mom's old desktop, I have not been posting as frequently. Or including many photos. I am going to try to do better. Starting with tonight and catching up on some things I skipped these past couple of days.like the trip I made to the bank on Wednesday with the long line I ran in to right after lunch. Apparently they close the whole place down at lunch, then everyone comes back at the same time. What I thought was really interesting was the homeless gut that was outside waiting with everyone else; he went in last; he had no mask on. The branch manager called him by name and said, "Now Douglas, you know you can't be in here without a mask. Where's the mask we gave you earlier? If you don't have it, you need to go outside." And Douglas went back out; they treated him very respectfully. And it sounds like they try to accommodate him.


As I parked the car, I noticed there was a blue ribbon around the tree I was parked next to; it was the Manu-o-Ku nest tree warning ribbon. I looked up and saw an adult that had just finished feeding a chick! This is not the usual bank that I go to for Dad's banking; that one is closed during the pandemic. I am thinking I might just come to this one even after the pandemic so I can check on the Manu-o-Ku tree!


On Thursday night a guy decided the middle of the intersection by our house would be a good place to take a nap! Fortunately the police were able to arrive before anyone came flying over the hill and hit him because they were going too fast for the sight distance conditions. When I got out of the shower he was sitting on the side of the road.

He's not hurt; he's just lying in the middle of the road. (Photo by The Potential Most Favorite Roommate)

An hour later he's sitting on the side of the road.

On Wednesday I had also sent out 2 more COVID-19 Survival Kits. One was to Kai and the other was to Suzanne & Manu & their 'ohana on the east coast. I sent them Hawaiian print cloth face masks! Manu is kumu hula of Halau Ho'omau I ka Wai Ola O Hawai'i. Suzanne got hers on Saturday and sent me a photo.

I sent a mask for each family member including the kids. (Photo by Suzanne)

One of our Friday guest speakers, Dr. Manulani Meyers, also invited us to attend the NiuNOW webinar on Sunday to learn about coconuts. The webinar was created to replace the workshop about coconuts that was supposed to be held in September. Sunday was the 3rd webinar and covered mo'olelo about niu and some other uses of niu. The webinars are held on the 4th Sunday of the month from 11 am to 1 pm HST; if you want to be added to the list send an email to chelsie @ www.maooranicfarms.org.

It opened with an oli about the niu; I was surprised at how much I could understand!

This was a m'olelo (story) about how the niu helps humans.

We watched a video of ethnobotanist Edith Krass explaining how the Hawaiians used niu.

This describes a fementd sauce made with niu.

I hope to be able to watch next month's webinar so I can learn how to germinate niu seeds.

There are no classes on Monday or Tuesday for Dr. C's course; last Friday was the last one. So our team spent part of Monday morning recording video clips for our ho'ike presentation on Friday. We have a good mix of strengths in our team of 5. Jean is a good organizer; she keeps us on track with what we need to get done and when we need to be working on it. Malia is great at setting up the team Zoom meetings and starting things in Google docs for us. I am good at creating PowerPoint documents. Michael is good at video editing and creating short scripts for our projects. And Justin is good at brainstorming and also getting his grandkids to act things out for our video!

I spent some time registering for the testing that will take place on H-3 in the tunnel. And also checking out the information they provided on how to collect your nasal saw; you do it yourself under the direction of a staff person at the site. It should lessen the chances of the staff person being exposed if the person is positive.

Here are the stats for today; if you want to know the specific daily stats for the previous days you will have to look them up yourself. I have now decided to start this portion of the blog with the statistics from Lt. Governor Josh Green's Facebook page. He is a practicing emergency room doctor and summarizes the stats that matter when looking at whether we have the capacity to handle the results of rising cases. Then I will follow it with information from the Hawaii Data Collaborative which takes available statistics and puts them in a visual format that I find to be more understandable than the stats found on the department of health page. Finally, if there is information from the department of health page that is not available elsewhere I will provide those.




This bars on this graph shows the number of tests done each day; the dark line is the percent positive rate for that particular day. The graph immediately below it shows how long the turn around time is for tests that must be sent to labs on the continent, like the surge tests that are currently being done. Most of the local tests are returned in 1 or 2 days.




Hau'oli la Hanau e Anake Jeanne, Lillian, & Martin! Belated Hau'oli la Hanau e MIchelle, Pam, Diana, & hou hanau Yvonne!

Out of the Box

There have been some problems with traffic jams at the surge testing sites. Even with the pre-registration and appointment times there have been long lines, some stretching on to the freeway & creating unsafe situations. So the Governor and the department of transportation have come up with a novel testing location: the H-3 freeway tunnels! A portion of the freeway leading up to and exiting the Harano Tunnels in both directions will be closed off to regular traffic. Apparently there is 5 miles of freeway leading up to the tunnels from both sides that do not have any entrances or exits so a line of stopped cars would not create a hazard. The H-3 site will be open on Tuesday and Thursday next week for the surge testing.



Today was the last day of Week 5; only one more week of training left for the Community Contact Tracer Training. Our morning speaker was Liza Simon-Tuiolosega, speaking about Communication in the Time of COVID-19. She also talked about social media and how to talk to people who believe everything in their social media feed.


In the afternoon we started with Dr. Albie Miles, speaking on Sustainable Community Food Systems. He showed how the food system is affected by climate change and how the pandemic is related to climate change. Under normal conditions we have only 5 to 7 days worth of food supplies in the state; if this were a natural disaster that damaged infrastructure we would be in a dire situation like Puerto Rico after the hurricanes. Dr. Miles said the native Hawaiians pre-colonization were easily supporting nearly the same size population as we have today using low tech native food production methods. He said there is hope that the changes we are having to make because of the pandemic will keep us moving towards food self sufficiency.


He was followed by Dr. Manulani Meyers, speaking on Effulgent Coherence: Native Hawaiian Culture and This Moment in Time. She spoke on how Hawaiian culture has survived numerous epidemics since the arrival of Captain Cook; about 80% of the population was wiped out by disease in about 30 years. Now there are numerous programs based on Hawaiian culture that are helping to restore native culture and wisdom.


One of the programs Dr. Meyers talked about was the spirit of surfing and its healing power. I know when I tried surfing I really enjoyed it and would have really gotten in to it except I can't see very far ahead without my contacts.


I had an email from Mac Made Easy; they had called in the middle of class yesterday but I did not recognize the number so I didn't answer. They finished the diagnostics on my laptop earlier than expected. The problem is the GPU module on the logic board; it needs to be replaced. Getting the new part usually takes 2 to 5 days, but they're not sure how long it will be right now. I told them to go ahead with the repair.

There is a disturbance about 900 miles southeast of us. It is expected to continue slowly moving westerly and has only about a 20% chance of becoming a more organized system within the next 5 days.


There were 265 new cases today for a total of 7830 known positive cases; of those 5361 are active cases. I misspoke on Wednesday when I was figuring out how many of the 4921 active cases each contact tracer would have; the investigators handle the active cases. Contact tracers would handle the close contacts of the active cases; which could mean twice as many or more people!

The number of existing ICU beds has now been added to this graph.

Hau'oli la Hanau e Sili!

Going in to Lock Down Again

Just after midnight tonight, at 12:01 am Thursday morning, we go in to lock down again. The new case numbers have remained in the triple digits; today is was 277, giving us a total of 7260 cases. The good news is that the curve has leveled out instead of continuing to rise but we are still in a precarious position. Our positivity rate has also gone up to 11%; which US Surgeon General Adams says puts us in the Red zone, meaning things could get real bad, real quick. The lock down should bring the new case & positivity rates down to a more manageable level; if it is successful we should see new case numbers & the number of COVID cases in the hospital begin to drop in about 2 weeks.

Last night the news reported that 7 of the largest hospitals on O'ahu were on divert. What that means is as an emergency vehicle is bringing a patient in dispatch tells them that the closest emergency room is too full and can't take the patient so they are routed to the next nearest emergency room with space. Usually they see 1 or 2 diverts, not 7. If the patient is critical they can override the divert and take them to the closest ER but then someone else's care is delayed; these are the types of scenarios we covered in our ethics training. How do you chose who to with hold care from?

The Surgeon General is also here to start up surge testing; the Feds have made 60,000 COVID-19 tests available for anyone in the next 2 weeks. In fact, he is encouraging as many people as possible to get tested whether they feel sick or not. The surge testing will help give a better picture of what the asymptomatic occurrence is. We are going to try to find a time when The Roommates & I are all available so we can get tested all at the same time. Test results will be returned in 3 or 4 days since they will be sent to labs on the continent so that tests on seriously ill people can be processed in-state in 1 or 2 days.

I am in the middle of Week 5 of the Community Contact Tracer Training. Next week Friday is the final day of the training. We anticipate we will be called up almost immediately the following week since there are 4921 active cases as of today and the department of health website claims there are 96 contact tracers on O'ahu (although that number has not been updated since August 16th). That would be about 51 cases per contact tracer; DOH says with their current technology each tracer can handle 20 cases.  Even if an equal number of cases were closed today (277), that would bring the number of cases per contact tracer down only to about 48 each; which is still more than 20. Adding the 27 of us from Cohort #2 who are on O'ahu would bring the case load down to about 40 each. (Four people in Cohort #2 are on Hawai'i Island, 1 on Maui, and 2 on Kaua'i. The numbers were chosen based on populations of the counties.)

Yesterday we did "real" plays with volunteers from the school of social work faculty; the group I was in had Theresa. She was great! Although the character she was "real" playing was resistant to quarantining, Theresa said I did great letting her character know what was available to help her be successful in doing the quarantine. I feel more comfortable after doing the "real" playing; I now know a lot of what I have done before has given me tools that I can bring to contact tracing and be better than I thought I might be. (In "real" play you use things from your life to flesh out the character so your answers are consistent with your earlier responses.)

Hau'oli la Ho'omana'o kanakolu makahiki e Lorna & Darrell! A me ka Hau'oli la Ho'omana'o 'umi kumamakolu makahiki e Kyle & Valerie!

"New" Laptop!

I pretty much spent all afternoon Wednesday putting Mom's old desktop computer together to see if I could make it work for the rest of my classes. It was functional for the usual stuff but I wasn't sure how it would do with Zoom.

So on Thursday morning I fired it up and connected it to Zoom. So far so good, even though there was no video feed of me because there is apparently no camera on Mom's monitor; no problem. But as I sat through class I discovered that Zoom puts just enough of a load on the memory that 4 times in our 90-minute morning class both the video and the audio froze up. I had to close and reload everything. It took me 2 or 3 minutes to get back to the conversation and by then I was lost; I will have to listen to the recording of that session.

After lunch I got smarter; I ran the audio through my phone while the video was on Mom's computer; which still crashed 3 or 4 times during the 90-minute session. But I could still listen to the audio on my phone while I was reloading everything so I was not clueless when the video came back on.

In the evening I emailed Dr. Ric & Dr. C about how I would be showing up in their future classes. I also emailed my team to let them know I might not be able to contribute as much to our final project due to the ancient technology. After dinner I found that team member Justin had replied, offering the use of a spare laptop here in Honolulu! (Dr. Ric also tried to get me a loaner laptop from the program organizer, but Justin beat him to it.) Long story short; Justin's brother Alfred brought the laptop over just before the Friday afternoon class started. After class I got it up and running and can now access my emails and calendar from it so I can attend Zoom class on Monday! Mahalo nui loa e Justin & Alfred! (Justin is on the Big Island but the laptop was here which is why Alfred was involved.)

Justin's old laptop sitting on the desk in front of Mom's old computer.

For class today, our guest lecturer was Dr. Rebecca Romine. The morning session was on Ethical Issues During a Pandemic. Dr. Romine also taught the afternoon session which was on Health & Wellness During a Pandemic. There will be very few photos since I can't figure out how to change png files to jpg files in Windows 8 in order to insert them in to the blog. Just know that Dr. Romine is a great speaker and gave us tools to help us with taking care of ourselves during our time as contact tracers.

The Potential Most Favorite Roommate made dinner tonight; it was a holiday for him (and the rest of The Roommates). But not for Cohort #2! (Since it's an accelerated class, we don't have any down time.) He made chili; I think he put arabiki in it.


There were 230 new COVID-19 cases today, bringing the total up to 6072. Currently, 227 COVID-19 positive cases have been hospitalized; 44 in the ICU. Right now 49% of ICU beds are in use; Dr. Romine's lecture on ethics this morning touched on the subject of when the ICU beds are almost filled. What happens when 2 patients come in needing an ICU bed; how do you determine who gets the last ICU bed? Or a ventilator? Or other intervention when resources are stretched thin? That's the type of training we are getting. That's one of the many reasons why you can't just pull an out-of-work person off the street and put them on a phone to become a contact tracer. If it was that easy the training wouldn't be 6 weeks long!

Kalapawai Cafe

I had dinner from Kalapawai Cafe; it's about 30 minutes away. Why did I go that far for dinner? It's across the street from Mac Made Easy, which is the only official Mac repair store open right now. All the Apple stores on the island are closed including the one that is 5 minutes away from the house. So I went to Kalapawai to get dinner while I was there.

I had checked 1st thing in the morning to make an appointment to drop my laptop off at the Apple store nearby for repair, only to find that they were closed. When I Googled Mac repair, I found the only thing open was Mac Made Easy; I sent an email since they weren't open yet. Long story short, it will be about 10 days before my laptop gets to the top of the queue and they can tell me what's wrong with it.

In the meanwhile I would be using Mom's old computer which is running Windows 8. It does not have a camera so my classmates can only see a black box with my name now. It was also rather glitchy; it crashed 4 times in the 90-minute morning session. Since it took 2 or 3 minutes for me to shut everything down & restart it again to unfreeze it, I set my phone up for audio for the afternoon session so I could at least listen to what was going on as I worked on things. I am such a visual learner it helps for me to see slides or peoples faces for the information to stick in my brain.

Later I emailed Dr. Ric & Dr. C to let them know how I was going to be showing up on their Zoom screens for the next 2 weeks of class. I also emailed my team to let them know I might not be able to contribute as much to our final project because of the ancient technology. Later in the evening, Justin responded saying, "I know of an available laptop in Honolulu. ... I can get my brother to drop it off if he can get it. Do you want it?" So tomorrow Justin's brother will pick up Justin's old laptop and bring it to the house! My team is amazing!

The COVID Contact Crew gave the "of the Day" presentation this morning. Although it was great and I learned things, this system is slow and cumbersome, so no photos.

Dr. Sarah Park from the state department of health was one of our morning guest lecturers. Dr. Park gave us behind the scenes look at what is going on with contact tracing and what to expect going forward. She said the Convention Center space is being used for training; after 2 weeks, tracers will be issued a DOH cell phone, then work from home. She also said sometimes recommendations by DOH for reopening or shutting down are ignored because of requirements of other agencies.

Dr. Aimee Grace also spoke in the morning. She runs the UH contact tracing training program. Dr. Grace filled us in on how many people have actually been trained since the start of the program.

There were 236  new COVID-19 cases reported today for a total of 5844 known cases. There were also 3 more deaths bringing that total up to 45.

Hau'oli la Hanau e Judy & Mick! A me ka Hau'oli la Ho'omana'o 'ewalu e Amy & Andreas! And Happy 1st Birthday to my S7! It has survived one year with me!

My Laptop is Dying

I have resurrected Mom's old desk top computer; its running on Windows 8. Not sure when I will get back to posting for the blog. The priority right now is the Contact Tracer Training.

First it does this.

Then it does this. Then it goes black.

A hui hou! Malama pono!

Johns Hopkins

I started out the morning by starting the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Contact Tracing course. Apparently some jurisdictions will accept the certificate received after completing this training to be a contact tracer; for us its just another piece if we choose to do it. The training is free until the end of the year. I have been told it is about 6 hours total; this 1st part was about an hour long.

The yellow particles are SARS-CoV-2.

At the end of each module there is a short quiz. You need to pass with 85% in order to pass the training.












Notice that 95% of people infected begin to show symptoms within 14 days; which means that 5% take more than 14 days.



For you visual learners, these 2 graphics show the incubation & infectious periods and how they overlap with the signs & symptoms.

Darn! Did not get 100% on this one.

Over the courses of the pandemic, treatment to support the patient has been evolving as more is discovered about the virus & its effects.







Timing is everything.

The red line is where contact tracers are most effective.

It's a good thing measels isn't more deadly than it is.

This is what happens if we don't physically distance, wear masks or wash our hands.

Each of us can help break the infection chain.

The guest lecturer for today was unable to be with us in person, so Dr. C played the video of Jeanelle Sugimoto-Matsuda's presentation to Cohort #1 for us this morning. She spoke on Public Health Communication.

Jeanelle gave us a little info about herself & how she got in to public health.

Jeanelle used a project with youth suicide prevention by youth groups as an example of health communications.



Each of the youth groups came up with a message.











We watched a TED Talk  by Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick and how she developed the Dr. Lisa on the Street videos to help teach people about health literacy.







During the last 45 minutes of class, Dr. C. had the teams get together to discuss their projects for Dr. Ric's class. Since we have finished our "of the Day" presentation, we are concentrating on our final hoʻike presentation. We brainstormed a bout 8 or 9 different ideas. Malia had created the initial Goggle slides again, I made a slide for each of the ideas, and Michael sent out a quick graphic he made with the Bat signal with a mask on over Waikiki. It put the graphic on a slide and added the text; other people will work on the other ideas over the next week or so.


Last night The Roommates brought back some chicken enchilada that Briy & Dylan made. I had part of one for lunch. Yum!


After lunch I did the 2 HIPAA modules for MRC volunteers. Both of these are needed for anyone working with confidential health information. One module is on HIPAA regulations and the other is on information security as it relates to HIPAA information. I started with the Security Awareness Training.





Not sure what happened here but I'm missing a bunch of slides here about what you're supposed to do at your work station.









































After a short break, I did the HIPAA Privacy Training.






































In the news today we have passed the 3000 case benchmark. There has been anotheremployee at Family Court that has tested positive. The annual RIMPAC exercises have started; it's a little smaller this year and none of the exercises are going to take place on land.




The disturbance south of us is and continuing  westerly. There are no other disturbances nearby.


Today there were only 174 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 5215 known positive cases. There were no new deaths but there were 5 more hospitalizations.











This graphic has not changed since August 3rd, even though it says it is updated every Monday. I originally found this graphic on August 8th. I am hoping that with the new head of contact tracing this will be updated and additional meaningful data is made publicly available.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Kathryn, Billy Boy & DeAndre!