• MystikIncarnate
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    6 days ago

    In medical environments being aware of what you make contact with, aka, contact tracing, is absolutely about tracking what the hell you touched.

    You leaned on that wall over there for 2.6 seconds after touching this thing contaminated with x, y, and z? Great, now we have to sanitize that, and everything that made contact with it.

    Sit down.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      6 days ago

      Which isn’t what the covid contract tracing apps did. They just looked for proximity. Which makes sense, because covid is primarily transmitted by breathing around people.

      • MystikIncarnate
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        2 days ago

        If you’re only referring to contact tracing in the context of the apps that were made, sure. Then it’s about who you were in contact with.

        Contact tracing in medical contexts is entirely not that (or at least, not just that).

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          2 days ago

          And since we’re talking about covid in a mass context outside of just medical professionals, that’s entirely justified.

          • MystikIncarnate
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            20 hours ago

            I disagree. I specifically cited in the context of the apps made. The contact tracing that was in effect for COVID was far more comprehensive.

            If you didn’t get that message, you likely were not paying attention. I knew people that were using disinfecting wipes on their groceries because of contact tracing. Eg, they couldn’t know what or who made contact with their products prior to having them, so they did the right thing in the context of contact tracing and sanitized the items to the best of their ability.

            This wasn’t uncommon among those that actually wanted to avoid the virus.

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              19 hours ago

              I knew people that were using disinfecting wipes on their groceries because of contact tracing. Eg, they couldn’t know what or who made contact with their products prior to having them, so they did the right thing in the context of contact tracing and sanitized the items to the best of their ability.

              No, they wasted cleaning product. As I outlined some replies ago, this did have real consequences.

              Let me give you some background. When lockdowns went into effect, I was on the board of a local makerspace with around 400 members and 20k sq ft of space at the time. On that same board was a registered nurse (who has since become a nurse practitioner) and someone in local government who is involved in the administrative part of healthcare policy. When the lockdowns hit, we had the same assumptions about covid being passed through contact, and our landlord also wanted us to have a plan to clean everything before anything opened up again. We figured there might be shortages of cleaning products, so we preordered tubs of industrial strength cleaners in those early days.

              Fast forward to summer 2020 as lockdowns start to be lifted (too soon or not). We hesitated to open up fully, but did some limited things. One thing we didn’t do was deep clean the whole shop. By then, the research had already shown that covid spread through contact was mostly a nothingburger. I don’t remember what we did with the tubs of cleaner (might have donated them to a place with a specific need). We did this at the urging of the nurse and the local gov healthcare person, who both pointed to specific research that was already showing breath being the key transmission method, not contact.

              Frankly, I’m going to take the word of a nurse and a local gov worker than you. Both of whom I still consider friends.

              One thing we did do in summer 2020 was hold some outdoor drive-in movie nights. People could only go inside to use the bathroom. We did have some hand sanitizer around. By that time, there were already recalls on some hand sanitizer that companies had been putting methanol in them, which can make people go blind, or can be lethal. I went through the area and found about half our bottles were on the recall list.

              This is a good example of why “if we only save one life, it’s worth it” is a phrase that should be eliminated from the English language. There are always tradeoffs. Always. This tradeoff was not worth it at all. The phrase only serves to stop people from thinking those tradeoffs through.

              If that’s not enough for you:

              • MystikIncarnate
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                9 hours ago

                You wasted a lot of words here.

                You acknowledge that at the beginning of COVID, contact tracing and sterilization of contact surfaces was paramount before we knew better, going to the length of generating, or otherwise obtaining “tubs” of cleaning products for the purpose.

                My entire point is that “contact tracing” is not just who you make contact with but what you make contact with. My point is not and was never that it was relevant for protection against COVID. My point was that it was a part of contact tracing. I only mention COVID at all because that is what was taught in the early days of the lockdown. A point to which you have all but plainly said, that you have also been educated on.

                The miscommunication here is that you are only looking at contact tracing as person to person contact because it was relevant during the pandemic, while I’m focused on the umbrella concept of contact tracing not just for COVID specifically and that as a medical term, which it is and always has been, “contact tracing” is not just person to person contact, but also contact with surfaces. The context of the word contact, is the difference. In your view, you are seeing contact as in someone on your contact list, a person you connect with, or communicate with. In my context, contact is the act of touching or making physical contact with peoples and things, including nonphysical contact, like what happens when you share a small space with someone, you are in contact with all of the surfaces they are, inhaling the air they’re exhaling.

                For COVID, contact tracing and education thereof started with the full medical definition of contact tracing, including, but not limited to, physical contact to both people and objects, and sharing a space with others. Later the former part of that was dropped for COVID specifically as it was established that it did not yield any significant prevention from infection.

                None of the above paragraph is in question.

                My friend who sanitized their groceries on the advice of medical professionals during the early days of the pandemic did, indeed, as you say, waste cleaning products with no real gain to show for it. In their defense, at the time nobody knew that.

                My point is. Contact tracing is more than who you make contact with. That was it. You’re arguing something totally off topic about COVID that doesn’t refute anything I’m trying to prove.

                In the context of COVID, again, no it does not prevent the spread in any meaningful way, as medical science has since proven. You were, like everyone else, taught the full meaning of contact tracing during the early days of the pandemic, yet here we are. You’re up on a soap box, shouting from the rooftops that it doesn’t prevent the spread of COVID. A point that was never in contention. Good job. You played yourself.