Purple

I started out the morning looking at the seat cushions on the Purple website. I had bought 2 Purple seat cushions for Dad because he was complaining about his butt being sore when he sat in the wheelchair for more than 30 minutes or so. I had gotten both the Royal and the (travelers); he ended up needing to use the Royal so I took the (travelers) home. I'm not sure exactly when, but The Roommates found it when they were cleaning the family room and The Potential Most Favorite Roommate started using it on his computer chair.

This is the top of their line.

This is what Dad is using on his wheelchair.

I am thinking of getting this if I have to sit all day.

This is what I am using right now.

I think I should get this, too.

After sitting most of the day Sunday, while writing my 1st reflection paper for Dr. Ric's class, my back was killing me so I went looking for the seat cushion. After looking for it for a couple of days & talking with The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes, we realized what had happened. I am now using the seat cushion until the training is over. I was going to buy another seat cushion for The Potential Most Favorite Roommate, but Purple has an option where you can bundle products and save more (cuts down on shipping costs I guess), so I am going to wait to see if I get hired to do the contact tracing. Which will mean sitting for 8 hours a day, which means I will need a good seat cushion!


During the morning class, Dr. Ric welcomed the 3 new students who have been recruited from the Pacific Islander community. He gave us the updated team lists & also told us about his Talk Story meetings that he did when he had in-person classes; they used to go out for breakfast or lunch. We can't meet in person now, so it will be an additional Zoom meeting with our team.








The "of the Day" presentation today was by the Sugar Cane Squad; the team members are from west O'ahu.



Their News of the Day was about the COVID-19 tracking & alert app that the State of Virginia has just started using. When a question came up about how it worked & how they got around HIPAA laws about patient privacy, Brian (who is not in that group) explained. He said everything is voluntary; after you download the app you are given an encrypted key that allows you to enter your data. You are tracked on the app for 14 days, every other phone that also has the app is noted if the phones are in close proximity to each other for 15 or more minutes. If an app user tests positive, they enter that information in the app; the app then sends an alert to all the other phones that met the "close contact" criteria so those app users can be aware of their exposure. According to what Brian found out, after 14 days the app and the GPS data are deleted. Bottom line: Since it is the person who tested positive releasing their own information there is no HIPAA violation.









After the "of the Day" presentation Dr. Hirokawa & Dr. Kintu were our guest lecturers. They talked about the Hawaii Primary Care Association and Kalihi-Palama Health Center and the work they are doing within underserved communities.














Dr. Kintu runs the Kalihi-Palama Health Center on a day-to-day basis. He talked about what they do there and the potential barriers to being able to effectively do contact tracing in the community. 


After lunch, Dr. Ric started by sharing a photo that one of the Cohort #1 students sent him in the morning. Apparently 40 of the 45 students from Cohort #1 started as contact tracers with the state as we were in the middle of the morning session! There apparently has been talk of speeding up our training to get us ready sooner; its already pretty fast, I'm not sure how they would do that. Things must be dire since we only have 3 weeks left of our training and they're thinking that's not soon enough.

This morning at the Convention Center.

Some teams have already signed up.

Our afternoon guest lecturers were Dr. Sherie Daniels and Dr. Neal Palafox. Dr. Daniels was also one of the speakers in the webinar COVID-19 Impact on Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Communities that we viewed for Dr. C's class during the first week.


Dr. Daniels spoke first about Papa Ola Lokahi, how they work with the Native Hawaiian community throughout the state as well as on the continent.






 

Dr. Palafox finished off the day for us with information about a few of the Pacific Islander communities. He also included some history and politics of the area and how US actions have created a lot of the problems seen today within those vulnerable communities. The Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? series has a module on the US impact on the Marshallese.

















Dr. Palafox then gave us a brief history of US activity in the Pacific Islands and some of the different treatments in the area. He highlighted how these actions have created the current problems the various communities are experiencing.











These are some of the things Dr. Palafox says we may be asked about when we are making are calls. I know I have already been asked about a couple of these when I was delivering groceries & supplies through the MRC Support Services.


After class I was able to see Dad in the drive through visit program. There were only 2 other families visiting today. I dropped off a bag of cat treats for Popokilani; Dad now has them in the bag hanging off the back of his wheelchair. And in keeping with her cat nature, she did not come by today.

The weather forecasters say disturbance that is about 830 miles southeast of us has only a 30% chance of becoming an organized system over the next 5 days. Over in the Eastern Pacific area, Tropical Depression Ten-E is nearing the edge of the Central Pacific region. It is moving our way at about 5 mph so it may take awhile to get close; in the meanwhile they are saying that wind shear will probably break it up.



The big news today was that there is a new person that is leading the contact tracing at the department of health. Or so they say. I found the article confusing because they also say that the person they identified as the "new" lead has been there since mid-July. So what is it really? A new lead or finally allowing that person to do their job? Or something else? I asked Dr. Ric if he could get us 5 minutes with that person to see what their vision is for the contact tracers that are being trained.


The other big piece of news is that there are 70 new cases at the OCCC . And that is only with completing testing of 2 of their 19 modules. We can expect to see a lot more cases in the coming days.


We set another record today, 355 new COVID-19 cases! The total of known cases is now 4312. There were also 2 more deaths bringing that total up to 40. There are now 2556 active cases, with 156 people currently hospitalized; 29 are in ICU beds and 22 are on ventilators. The positive case rate of for the recent tests is 10.5%; the rolling 7-day average is 6.2%.