The economic downturn brought about by Covid-19 has put sustained pressure on businesses to reopen across the United States. Record unemployment, delayed stimulus checks, and mixed messages from top government officials have brought about unprecedented financial challenges for many Americans. And essential workers face ongoing uncertainty about their own safety. Virginia’s Department of Labor is an encouraging (but sadly, far from typical) example of how local governments strive to compensate for the lack of federal leadership. As reopened states report surging case counts, the threat of COVID-19 shows no signs of abating. In the midst of this treacherous landscape, employers are anxious to mitigate health risks to their own teams.
One method organizations are adopting comes straight from the epidemiologists' toolkit: Contact Tracing. Identifying where and when individuals come into contact with an infectious disease makes it possible to interrupt the transmission within a population through testing, quarantining, and treatment. The power of contact tracing to reduce transmission rates has been seen in countries like South Korea and Taiwan that were among the first to contain COVID-19. For epidemiologists and leaders in public health, contact tracing is a critical factor in changing the trajectory of the pandemic and a crucial component of a disaster-response infrastructure.
As governors backtrack their states’ reopenings in response to skyrocketing case counts, the pressure is mounting to approach future reopenings more strategically and thus safely. In this regard, there is room for optimism as new technologies make contact tracing easier to perform and scale-up. Technology-Assisted Contact-Tracing (TACT) tools play the part of in-house epidemiologists, making it faster and easier for businesses to reduce transmissions and improve safety.
So how does a contact tracing solution enable safe reopening of the workplace?
It’s a three-step process defined by the World Health Organization: Identification, Listing, and Follow-Up.
Identification
Contact events can be monitored in a multitude of ways, including manual logging, triangulation from wifi connections, and badge in/badge out records. Optionally, a Bluetooth-based tracking system like Ubudu’s Social Distancing Assistant can dramatically enhance the granularity and accuracy of contact identification. Once this data is in the system, graphing the connections between people, places, and contact events reveal possible transmission opportunities.
Listing
Along with contact data, all known data around infection status needs to be represented in the graph. Individuals who self-report positive infection status are the clearest indicator. Additionally, information about symptoms reported at a location — coughing and sneezing at a job site, complaining of loss of smell or shortness of breath — can warn of infection even before an employee knows they have it. Adding status to the contact graph quickly makes apparent who has been exposed and should be notified accordingly.
Follow Up
Once contacts are identified and listed, organizations can notify affected individuals and, where appropriate, recommend quarantine, treatment, and additional testing. While some TACT solutions automate exposure notification, this may or may not be desirable within the workplace. Organizations must not only protect the safety of their employees but also preserve the privacy of their personal health information (PHI).
Safe Opening
While contact tracing on its own is not enough to ensure a safe reopening, it is a vital component of any safe reopening strategy. Kineviz’ own TACT solution, GraphXR Contact Tracing, helps minimize overlap between employees returning to the workspace by applying graph algorithms to expose degrees of connection. In addition to shift and deployment planning tools, GraphXR Contact Tracing includes publicly available health data from sources like Johns Hopkins University and the New York Times to provide additional geographical and chronological context.
The human impact of COVID-19 is undeniable and tragic. Organizations face daunting challenges in keeping their teams safe and employed. We cannot afford to feel hopeless or helpless, but must instead take advantage of all available tools to mitigate risks. You don’t have to use our contact tracing solution, but if you’re responsible for a team, please use someones.
Learn more by visiting our GraphXR Contact Tracing solutions page or try it for yourself with our interactive demo.
Dig deeper with our recent press release announcing our partnership with Ubudu in contact tracing for the workplace, as well as, our CEO in discussion with Neo4j’s Partners on Harnessing Graph Technology in a New Business Climate. We also encourage small businesses and organizations to take advantage of these free printable posters and signs for COVID-19 to promote safety in the workplace. Thank you!
