Have you been contacted by Track and Trace?

[DelayRepay]

This is partly inspired by the Eat Out to Help Out thread where some people say they are avoiding eating out due to the prospect of 'house arrest' and other threads where people have boasted about giving false details when asked.

It is also inspired by media reports that the Track and Trace system is not actually very good at Tracking or Tracing people?

So a simple question - has anyone here actually been Tracked and Traced?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Does the letter through the post from the ONS/University of Oxford/IQVIA inviting you to participate in a series of doorstep tests in return for up to £125 of Amazon vouchers count? (Anyone else had one of these?)

 

[Bantamzen]

I've been to at least a dozen different pubs and restaurants following their re-opening, and have not had a single contact from any (I have been giving my correct details). If the fear mongers were even remotely accurate, I should now be classed as high risk and a "super spreader". Yet here in Baildon we have not had a single reported case in weeks. Weird really, given that this is the worst virus ever (according to some).....

 

[Trackman]

Does the letter through the post from the ONS/University of Oxford/IQVIA inviting you to participate in a series of doorstep tests in return for up to £125 of Amazon vouchers count? (Anyone else had one of these?)

Was this for a vaccine trial? The mrs had a letter last Friday.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Was this for a vaccine trial? The mrs had a letter last Friday.

Don't think so. Ostensibly, ONS are wanting to ascertain how many people are still getting COVID-19, with or without symptoms, or have had it already, and not realised at the time. Supposedly been selected at random. Not obliged to take part according to the blurb. Looks to be genuine correspondence, and not some scam text or e-mail.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

I have not been contacted - but then I have not given my contact details to anyone; my wife gives hers when we go out

But of course, "if" she is contacted, she would already have given me the virus and we would have spread it to 100+ people we encounter every day. And that's days or weeks before we're told to self-isolate so talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted...

 

[adc82140]

I have not been contacted - but then I have not given my contact details to anyone; my wife gives hers when we go out

But of course, "if" she is contacted, she would already have given me the virus and we would have spread it to 100+ people we encounter every day. And that's days or weeks before we're told to self-isolate so talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted...

Blimey, that'd be an R rate of 100. Best not tell Sky News

 

[Howardh]

As above, I'm trying to live as normal and I'm sat here in a bar near Euston, left my details as I have everywhere else and never been contacted. To me the bar prices here are a greater worry than Covid......

 

[DelayRepay]

But of course, "if" she is contacted, she would already have given me the virus and we would have spread it to 100+ people we encounter every day. And that's days or weeks before we're told to self-isolate so talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted...

They are only interested in 'Close Contacts':

• if you have had any close contact with anyone other than members of your household. We are interested in in the 48 hours before you developed symptoms and the time since you developed symptoms. Close contact means:
  • having face-to-face contact with someone (less than 1 metre away)
  • spending more than 15 minutes within 2 metres of someone
  • travelling in a car or other small vehicle with someone (even on a short journey) or close to them on a plane
• if you work in – or have recently visited – a setting with other people (for example, a GP surgery, a school or a workplace)

Source: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works

So they don't contact everyone you've passed in the street or in a shop, and if you are practising distancing they won't need to contact the 100+ people.

It's a trade off isn't it - getting people to isolate when there's a reasonable chance they could be infected, but not isolating everyone as if they did that we might as well go back into lockdown.

Thinking back over the past few days, I would only have to declare close contact with one person - a friend I had lunch with as we were within 2m for more than 15 minutes. I did some shopping too but I don't recall having face to face contact within 1m of anyone, and other than the friend I mentioned I've not been within 2m of anyone for very long.

I am not sure if they would contact the lunch venue, but I don't think they'd be telling the others present to isolate given they were all 2m+ away. But I guess this would depend if I was the only person present reporting symptoms. If others who had been to the same place were reporting symptoms then that's probably when they'd start telling everyone to stay home.

I wonder why close to them on a plane counts, but not close to them on a train or coach?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wonder why close to them on a plane counts, but not close to them on a train or coach?

I read that as "for example" to be honest. Though it's easier to track people down on planes as the seat numbers are known.

 

[Journeyman]

I read that as "for example" to be honest. Though it's easier to track people down on planes as the seat numbers are known.

Yup. Social distancing doesn't seem to be a thing on planes, but the mitigation for that is being able to trace and contact everyone on board if necessary.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

They are only interested in 'Close Contacts':



Source: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works

So they don't contact everyone you've passed in the street or in a shop, and if you are practising distancing they won't need to contact the 100+ people.

It's a trade off isn't it - getting people to isolate when there's a reasonable chance they could be infected, but not isolating everyone as if they did that we might as well go back into lockdown.

Thinking back over the past few days, I would only have to declare close contact with one person - a friend I had lunch with as we were within 2m for more than 15 minutes. I did some shopping too but I don't recall having face to face contact within 1m of anyone, and other than the friend I mentioned I've not been within 2m of anyone for very long.

I am not sure if they would contact the lunch venue, but I don't think they'd be telling the others present to isolate given they were all 2m+ away. But I guess this would depend if I was the only person present reporting symptoms. If others who had been to the same place were reporting symptoms then that's probably when they'd start telling everyone to stay home.

I wonder why close to them on a plane counts, but not close to them on a train or coach?

As an example; my wife and I were in a restaurant recently where it was hard to social-distance. Somebody in that coffee shop could have passed on the virus to us

As our jobs involve daily close and personal contact with patients; for all we know, we could have infected 100+ people...

 

[DelayRepay]

As our jobs involve daily close and personal contact with patients; for all we know, we could have infected 100+ people...

I think you are one of the cases that would be deemed complex and passed to a local specialist public health department to sort out. But are you really coming into 1m face to face contact with 100 people per day? Aren't you taking any mitigating measures such as face coverings, perspex screens, distancing etc? I don't know what you do but it sounds rather dangerous in the current climate.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

I think you are one of the cases that would be deemed complex and passed to a local specialist public health department to sort out. But are you really coming into 1m face to face contact with 100 people per day? Aren't you taking any mitigating measures such as face coverings, perspex screens, distancing etc? I don't know what you do but it sounds rather dangerous in the current climate.

I work front-line in the NHS examining, testing, treating and counselling patients and their families

My wife is a home carer...

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I haven't been anywhere where they take details.

I did have a letter from NHS and others to take part in 'antibody testing research study'. Ipsos MORI were involved as well so it was ignored.

 

[Crossover]

For anyone who has been contacted, out of interest do they tell you where you were that is of ‘interest’ to them? I’ve heard anecdotally but interested in other views

I’ve not been to that many places myself (and most of them were of a time since that the details should have been destroyed by now!) but there was one in in particular that came to mind where there were some large groups gathered but I was in a small group way away from anyone else, outdoors. Had we happened to have been contacted in such a case I’d have been loathed to isolate given the distances involved (unless it was one of the group I was with, of course)

 

[LAX54]

I've been to at least a dozen different pubs and restaurants following their re-opening, and have not had a single contact from any (I have been giving my correct details). If the fear mongers were even remotely accurate, I should now be classed as high risk and a "super spreader". Yet here in Baildon we have not had a single reported case in weeks. Weird really, given that this is the worst virus ever (according to some).....

But if you look at 'local' figures overall, most places were low to very low, the bigger cities had higher rates, but then there were a lot more people there, I suspect the % thought was / is similar, 40,000 sounds a lot, but when you think there are almost 70 million in the UK...

 

[Bantamzen]

But if you look at 'local' figures overall, most places were low to very low, the bigger cities had higher rates, but then there were a lot more people there, I suspect the % thought was / is similar, 40,000 sounds a lot, but when you think there are almost 70 million in the UK...

Currently where I am (Baildon) there haven't been any reported cases in weeks, and even in wider Bradford there have only been a couple of hundred & no deaths in the last couple of weeks out of a population of over half a million.