Ethical & Confidentiality Concerns

This morning Dr. Susan Young was our guest lecturer; she taught us about "Identifying Ethical and Confidentiality Concerns with COVID-19 Tracing." It was very enlightening; Dr. Young explained about the contact tracing process.She also clarified the role of the investigator versus the contact tracer.



Here are a couple of the different certificates that identify the contact tracing training that is available. The Johns Hopkins training is a self-paced online training that covers the national standards. The UH training builds on the national standards and covers additional local needs. It appears that all states have another layer of local training that is needed beyond the Johns Hopkins training before someone can officially start doing contact tracing.

This is the certificate for Track 1 training.

This is the certificate from the Johns Hopkins University training.

This is the part that I was most interested in; the process for what happens after a person tests positive for COVID-19. I was a little confused after listening to sound bites about who does what and when; this cleared it up for me. The Investigator is a public health-trained person who is assigned to follow up on the Person Under Investigation (PUI) who has been identified with a reportable disease; the Investigator builds the list of Close Contacts for the PUI. The Investigator passes that list on to the Contact Tracer who then makes contact with the Close Contacts. We were told there is a possibility that some of us might get additional training to become Investigators if the surge grows larger.




These are some of the things the Contact Tracer is responsible for in their interaction with the Close Contact. This is part of what the 6 weeks of training is for; it's not something you can just give a person a script for them to read off as they are interacting with the Close Contact. Besides these aspects we are also listening for medical & other issues that might require us to elevate the case to a supervisor to handle.



We started out the morning class talking with Princess Mae about contact tracing; she has worked with the department of health doing contract tracing on other communicable diseases, not COVID-19. It was interesting hearing about her experiences working with Close Contacts.

After class I took the Subaru in for servicing; the Information light and low tire light were on. It turns out the only problem was that one of the tires was a little low. They filled it up and sent me on my way. They have a few more COVID-19 prevention signs. While waiting I noticed they also have sanitized and unsanitized pens. I wasn't able to get a photo of the anti-COVID-19 protection measures the use while working on your car; they put down a paper floor mat and cover the seat, steering wheel, and stick shift with plastic.





The Subaru service ended quickly enough I was able to be back home for Dad's Care Conference. For the most part, there were no changes in Dad's status so it was a quick conference. We also found out that 2 of the staff that announced their pregnancies back in March are just about ready to give birth!

The map on the Arka Kinari website finally shows that they have left Guam. They are headed southwesterly towards Indonesia. I will be tracking storms in the area while they are at sea. Right now everything is well north of their route.



Here at home the disturbance about 1900 miles southeasterly of us now has an 80% chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next 5 days. Another disturbance about 1750 miles southeast of us has about a 30% chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next 5 days. If either becomes a tropical depression east of 140 degrees W longitude they will be given a name from the Eastern Pacific list; if west of 140 when they form, they will get a Hawaiian name.


COVID-19 continues to make headlines. A big one is that HGEA has filed a grievance against the state department of health apparently regarding working conditions; details of the grievance in the news were sketchy. The interisland quarantine is now in effect; it is only if you are going to another island. If you are arriving in Honolulu you do not need to quarantine since you are coming from a place with so little COVID-19. As feared, there are more jail inmates & officers that have teste3d positive. And anotherTheBus driver has also tested positive. When these individual occurrences stop making the news that will mean the rate of positive cases has become too large to keep track of.





The triple digit new tally for COVID-19 cases number for today is 118; bringing the total up to 3756. There were no new deaths reported, but there were 9 new hospitalizations bringing that number up to a total of 251; 166 of them are currently active. In terms of capacity, currently only 46% of ICU beds in the state are in use and only 15% of the ventilators are in use. But because COVID-19 patients stay in the hospital twice as long as other patients (10 days vs 5 days) there is a concern that these resources could quickly become overloaded; dire predictions say this could happen by the end of the month. The percent of cases that have recovered has dropped to 44%.

Not sure if this is helpful but thought I would let you know its available.

It will be interesting to watch this change when things are opened up again.

While some of the data may be a little different than other tables I have posted here, the value is the additional information provided in LG Green's break down of the hos[ital beds and ventilators in use.







The department of health added this graph today. It graphically shows the abrupt rise in positive cases on O'ahu while the other counties have remained low. Hence the interisland quarantine and the modification that if you are landing on O'ahu you don't need to quarantine.



Hauʻli lā Hānau e ʻAnakala Tom, Bev, & Sistah T!