{"id":126914,"date":"2020-12-05T01:38:29","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T22:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/covid-19s-brutal-second-wave-is-here-warns-nyc-contact-tracer\/"},"modified":"2020-12-05T01:38:29","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T22:38:29","slug":"covid-19s-brutal-second-wave-is-here-warns-nyc-contact-tracer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/covid-19s-brutal-second-wave-is-here-warns-nyc-contact-tracer\/","title":{"rendered":"#COVID-19’s brutal second wave is here, warns NYC contact tracer"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#COVID-19’s brutal second wave is here, warns NYC contact tracer<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

In June, this 30-something, female outer-borough resident joined the first ranks of NYC Health + Hospitals\u2019 Test & Trace<\/a> corps with the mission of helping stop the spread of COVID-19 by identifying those who may have been exposed to the novel virus. A worker of various service and health care jobs pre-pandemic, the contact tracer \u2014 who asked to remain anonymous for fear of work repercussions\u00a0\u2014 told The Post that she fears the pandemic\u2019s second wave has fully arrived in New York, and many more will soon be infected.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been a contact tracer since Day One. I\u2019ve spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. If you test positive, the first person you\u2019re going to speak to usually is a case investigator. After that, you speak to me \u2014 or I call you if someone who tested positive lists you as a close contact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the summer, there were times when things were slow, days when I had no calls. Not anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Things really changed with the schools opening. Then we started talking to a lot of parents and teachers. Every once in a while I\u2019d talk to a health care worker or someone in the Orthodox Jewish community. Sometime in early- to mid-November, it started to pick up and become more random. When people are irresponsible, it makes my job harder. After Thanksgiving weekend, there was a huge spike in cases \u2014 I got really busy. Now, the people I speak to come from everywhere. Some of them say they\u2019ve hardly been out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018When people are irresponsible it makes my job harder.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

I hate telling people I\u2019m busy at work. That\u2019s not good information. And the higher-ups at Test & Trace are saying it\u2019s only going to get more busy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our supervisors told us that even if it\u2019s seeing a small increase in the amount of calls we\u2019re personally starting to get, that spoke to rising levels of COVID. Since I learned that small thing, I\u2019ve been paying attention, and now that it\u2019s really increased, I\u2019m alarmed. It didn\u2019t use to be like this. That\u2019s enough for me to know COVID\u2019s second wave is here.<\/p>\n

\"contact-tracer-nyc\"
NYC Health + Hospitals\u2019 Test & Trace Program helps stop the disease\u2019s spread by contacting those who have or may have been infected and helping them safely isolate or get tested. <\/figcaption>
Corbis via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone was hired for a year; our contracts go through June 2021. But I was told recently they think it will go longer than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With this job, it\u2019s my work, but it\u2019s also my life, \u2019cause I\u2019m a New Yorker. They made a point of only hiring New Yorkers. They wanted people on the phone lines who really cared about the people they\u2019re talking to and stopping the spread.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most people I call know \u2014 they\u2019re not surprised they have COVID. But since fall, I\u2019ve started surprising more people with the news<\/a>. Some calls, the people really don\u2019t want to take it, but by the end we\u2019re joking, laughing. All I can do is listen. It\u2019s not a perfect system by any means, but we really are trying our best. New York state is strapp<\/a>ed for resources and there\u2019s misinformation flying around all over the place, so it\u2019s understandable people think I\u2019m just going to bother them and not help, but I know we\u2019re making a difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I hate telling people I\u2019m busy at work. That\u2019s not good information.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

I talk to people who don\u2019t realize it\u2019s gotten this bad. They\u2019ve adjusted to a new life and they don\u2019t want to make any more adjustments because they think they\u2019ve done a pretty good job. They look at the stats, but they\u2019ve adjusted their sense of fear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like it was for a couple months: We had low numbers; New York had fun. We\u2019re not there anymore \u2014 so don\u2019t treat it like that. You have to have a really high level of trust with someone if you\u2019re going to be in an enclosed space with them right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been following my own advice \u2014 I was dating and social<\/a>izing for a little bit during the summer. Now I\u2019m not doing either of those things \u2014 and I would like to, but it\u2019s not worth it to me. There\u2019s no one I\u2019m close enough to at this point where it would be worth my taking a risk just for some physical pleasure.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know anything the public doesn\u2019t, but I\u2019m exposed to it all day. For me, looking at COVID stats is like learning the weather. Us contact tracers don\u2019t have any secret knowledge, it\u2019s more that we can\u2019t look away from what we\u2019re seeing, so there\u2019s not really a whole lot of room for wishful thinking. It will only get worse.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#COVID-19’s brutal second wave is here, warns NYC contact tracer” In June, this 30-something, female outer-borough resident joined the first ranks of NYC Health + Hospitals\u2019 Test & Trace corps with the mission of helping stop the spread of COVID-19 by identifying those who may have been exposed to the novel virus. A worker of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":126915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/12\/covid-new-york-testing-75.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[82641,1545,70344,73014,70714],"class_list":["post-126914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-12-4-20","tag-coronavirus","tag-coronavirus-in-ny","tag-health-care","tag-public-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}