De Blasio Instructs Tracers Not to Ask New Coronavirus Patients if They Attended Protests
“We ask them questions about where they’ve been so that we can gauge who may be at risk. It may come out as part of the interview, but we ask more open-ended questions.”
The City reported that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio instructed “test and tracers” not to ask anyone who tests positive for the Wuhan coronavirus if they attended any of the protests or riots in response to the death of George Floyd.
De Blasio made this decision despite having concerns the protests and riots could spark another wave and his city being the epicenter of America’s outbreak.
From The City:
The hundreds of contact tracing workers hired by the city under de Blasio’s new “test and trace” campaign have been instructed not to ask anyone who’s tested positive for COVID-19 whether they recently attended a demonstration, City Hall confirmed to THE CITY.
“No person will be asked proactively if they attended a protest,” Avery Cohen, a spokesperson for de Blasio, wrote in an emailed response to questions by THE CITY.
Instead, test-and-trace workers ask COVID-positive individuals general questions to help them “recall ‘contacts’ and individuals they may have exposed,” Cohen said. Among the initial questions: “Do you live with anyone in your home?”
Tracers then ask about “close contacts” — defined as being within six feet of another person for at least 10 minutes.
It’s up to tested individuals to volunteer whether any of those close contacts occurred during protests. “If a person wants to proactively offer that information, there is an opportunity for them to do so,” Cohen wrote.
De Blasio announced the “test and trace” campaign on May 8. NYC officials said most people have cooperated with the tracers, but others “have refused to volunteer any information about their close contacts.”
The City wrote the medical chain CityMD is a “key source of tests” in New Jersey and Long Island. It seems different clinics have different questions:
A New Yorker who called up CityMD last week to get an appointment for a test after witnessing a daunting line at one of the clinics told THE CITY that the CityMD staff asked the individual whether they’d attended a protest.
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In Nassau County, health officials take a slightly different approach. While they do not ask individuals who test positive whether they’ve attended protests, they do ask them where they’ve been recently.
“We ask them questions about where they’ve been so that we can gauge who may be at risk,” said Mary Ellen Laurain, a spokesperson for the Nassau County Health Department. “It may come out as part of the interview, but we ask more open-ended questions.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to know if the protests and riots have led to new cases, but his health department is staying “neutral:”
Jonah Bruno, an agency spokesperson, stated, “We’re working with New York City to balance the public health priority while also protecting personal privacy, as we seek to ensure a thorough contact tracing program that helps us contain the COVID-19 virus and monitor any fluctuations in the infection rate as we continue reopening New York.”
I can understand not wanting to invade a person’s privacy. I also get that it would be hard for them “to trace those” someone protested with.
But I don’t think they have the purest motives.
The protests and riots placed the left in a difficult position since they have pushed so many restrictions on citizens due to the pandemic. This included social distancing.
They also faced calls of hypocrisy because they ranted against President Donald Trump’s future rallies, but supported the protests and riots.
The media and the left immediately said if a spike does occur it’s because of racism in order to excuse those who ignored the precautions given by officials.
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Comments
Cuomo’s Planned Parent, NOW De Blasio’s Planned Protestor… something’s not kosher in New York.
Breaking headlines from Weazil Zippers
De Blasio Was Out Marching In Protests Over Weekend, Not ‘Social Distancing’ Often Maskless
Mayor Bill De Blasio Cancels Press Conference Over “Illness”
His daughter probably caught the Rona at a protest she was arrested at and gave it to him……
Via Fox-5:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio canceled all events on his schedule Monday, marking the first time the city’s leader will not hold a briefing on the coronavirus during a weekday in more than 100 days.
But that can’t be contact traced since it would involve possible protests
But if Trump held a rally in say, the Garden, the very first question out of deBozo’s tracing stormtroopers would be “Did you attend the fascist rally at the Garden?”
Because we certainly don’t want anyone to conclude that the spike in cases in certain communities might be because of bad behavior or inability to follow rules.
Apparently, this virus has a political affiliation. It can’t possibly infect communists and nihilists. Oh wait, didn’t it come from China? Another left-wing Party of Science theory bites the dust.
It bestows immunity to law and order.
The one MAJOR question to ask epidemiologically and it’s forbidden. Great…and the Left touts their “science”.
Feels are more important than accuracy. This is not the party of science at all.
I’m old enough to remember when AIDS policy had to be vetted by activists to make sure it didn’t offend people who had AIDS.
I think all new virus patients should admit that they were at a protest. That will stop the questions, I’m sure.
If they’re not getting very specific information about where the individuals have been, when they were there, and who else they came into contact with, then this is most certainly NOT “contact tracing.” It sounds more like an exercise in political masturbation to me.
Make work jobs funnel more money to Democrats.
Or political opportunity.
What if we elected the most incompetent backwards no logic people in America to run the country? We are finding out.
Sit down, you commie hack.
This is kinda why people shouldn’t listen to politicians about anything to do with science (nor scientists about anything to do with politics).
It’s already been established by its mania for “open borders” that our Left considers its concept of “social justice” to be more important than public health. So this is just more of the same.
What’s perhaps new is that it clearly adds NYC to the list of sources which will provide us no honest or reliable epidemiological information whatever. China, WHO, NYC . . . all liars, and all useless.
Therefore the corona virus data from NYC and Nassau County is worthless. I took the John Hopkins contact tracer course and understood its importance. That Democrat politicians like DeBlasio in NYC and Laura Curran in Nassau County have perverted the intent of contact tracing comes as no surprise, they are Democrats.
True and true, but then it makes little sense to trace the person’s other contacts.
Well, when you elect a Communist sympathiser to be your mayor don’t be surprised when he goes all commie on you.
This on the heels of a claim by one nurse that a hospital in NY was literally killing healthy (minority) patients by claiming they had COVID, sedating them and putting them on respirators until they died, collecting a bounty for each one.
Sounds like Democrat Party propaganda to stir up racism again.
They could have done this to anyone…. Family isn’t allowed in to visit…. People are dying and there’s no family to see what’s going on.
It’s ripe for abuse to occur, or just indolence…
True.
It was evident from the start that the Communists and their bought Democrats were deliberarely – with malice a forethought – doing all they could to drive deaths up.
Suffer, NY. You elected this cretin.
This isn’t contact tracing
More city welfare for contact tracers who serve no purpose
“not to ask anyone who tests positive for the Wuhan coronavirus if they attended any of the protests or riots in response to the death of George Floyd.”
Sounds pretty specific. But they can still ask you if you attended a Trump rally, right?
In other words, Deblasio doesn’t want tracers to trace.
and this is why the Democrat party is a two-faced turd wagon.
Why bother paying tracers if you aren’t going to let them trace?