'I Was Skeptical Of How Real The Pandemic Is Until I Became A Contact Tracer'
To be honest, I wasn't paying that much attention to COVID-19 in the beginning; I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. I work as a librarian at the San Francisco Public Library, and I remember having one conversation at the library reference desk, saying something like, “SARS didn’t really come here, and Ebola didn’t either.” But then things started shutting down; the library closed and all employees were furloughed with pay in March.
As a city employee, I’m also a disaster service worker, which means I could be called up for any job when the city declares an emergency. I always expected that would be for something like an earthquake, though—not a pandemic.
Then, on April 14, I got an email from the library’s HR department about disaster service work, asking for volunteers to work as contract tracers and interview people who have been in close contact with confirmed positive COVID-19 cases. During the calls, I would find out things like how people are feeling—if they’re experiencing any symptoms—and if they have any underlying health conditions that would put them at risk for a more severe illness if they were to contract COVID-19. I would also encourage them to get a test.
I wasn’t really familiar with contact tracing, but I jumped at the idea because it sounded like a good way to help during this crisis. Plus, I had been doing a lot of sitting around since being furloughed, and I just wanted to do something to help.
I went through contact tracer training over the next two weeks, learning the logistics and also “shadowing” a contact tracer on Zoom while she made a call. During that call, the woman on the other end mentioned she'd had a brain tumor, and so the contract tracer had to go off script a bit; she showed compassion for the woman, but kept the interview going at the same time. I remember thinking, “Wow, this is a lot of stuff to juggle." I could also tell that this experienced contact tracer was still figuring things out on the fly, and it helped to know we were all in the same boat, just doing the best we could.
At the beginning of my first-ever shift, I was a total wreck.
I took a deep breath before I dialed, and when the woman picked up, I told her it was my first time calling somebody. Then I worked through the script I had, saying: “You are being called because you have been identified as a close contact to a person with a confirmed novel coronavirus infection.”
It’s hard to read off your lines and also try to make it sound personable. This woman had a workplace exposure and didn’t know who it was—when that happens, I can’t tell them who had COVID-19 or even when they may have come into contact with that person because of privacy reasons, so the woman on the other end of the line started to get a little uneasy. But I’d convinced her to answer my questions anyway. Then, about 15 or 20 minutes in, I heard a male voice in the background say, “She doesn’t sound professional. Hang up.” So she hung up on me.
I felt horrible, and I thought maybe I should quit. Then, that same shift, someone else hung up on me. This time, it was before I got a chance to even fully identify myself. So I texted the man, hoping that if he knew who was calling, he would stay on the phone. He did talk to me for about five minutes but said I was making him emotional and anxious and he hung up again.
That first day was hard. I think I had suppressed some emotions about how stressful these times are, and all of my pandemic stress came out that evening.
But the experience also made me think about how this really wasn't about me and what I was feeling. I've gotten to stay at home and shelter in place. I haven't been exposed. I understand why people could feel nervous to get these calls: It’s the first time they may be hearing about their exposure, and it’s scary.
So I tried to think about how I would feel if I were in their position, and I kept going. Sometimes people are ready and willing to share information with me, and sometimes they're not; I try to be empathetic either way.
For the most part, people tell me they're grateful for my team’s work.
The majority of people are willing to talk to me and happy to help the community, too—to quarantine so they don’t infect other people.
During one call, I spoke with a man who knew his wife was his exposure, and I was so impressed by his isolation setup. He described how his wife was in a back room with her own bathroom that he had sealed off with some kind of plastic over the door, minus a little slot for food. He had masks and cleaning supplies and was so cooperative with my questions. It was very nice to talk to somebody who was receptive and ready to do whatever needed to be done to stop the spread.
Some calls are more emotional than others.
Every situation is different, and people process the news I'm giving them differently.
I spoke with one woman who sounded like she was really, really sick, presumably with COVID-19—she was coughing and stuffed up. I could just tell that she was not feeling good, and I felt guilty about pushing forward with the call.
Another time, I spoke with a woman whose husband was in the hospital with COVID-19. She wasn’t able to see him, and she was worried about him. She was also afraid that she hadn’t done enough to take care of him. We were on the phone for 30 or 40 minutes, and she was crying.
I could tell she was a very caring woman, and I told her I was sorry to hear about her husband, that she had done everything she could.
At the same time, I still had to go through questions I needed to have answered for the contact tracing interview, like about her own health and living situation—if she had access to things like groceries and cleaning supplies. That was hard. I passed her contact information on to another team, so I’m not sure what happened with her and her husband. I always think about that call from early May.
I’m now leading a team of contract tracers, which means I'm no longer doing contact tracing calls and instead managing a team of contract tracers during each shift. But before that, I usually worked four-hour-long shifts three or four times a week, and talked to up to five people per call. Sometimes I left a lot of messages.
This work has taught me just how spreadable this disease is.
One person with COVID-19 can multiply into 30 people with it really, really quickly. I’m definitely more aware of how important it is to social distance, wear masks, and wash my hands.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned through contact tracing is that the virus affects everyone equally—we could all die from it, and that speaks to our humanness. But I’ve also clearly seen how our economic system harms us disproportionately.
I was in a virtual meeting with my daughter’s school district and other parents to help decide what will happen with her middle school, and people were saying that this pandemic is overblown and we need to get the kids back to school. And I thought to myself, "No. It’s not overblown."
I live in a place with single-family homes, where people can shelter in place pretty easily. Most of these people are probably working at professional jobs and can work from home.
There are people who are definitely feeling it more, especially those who have to go out and do essential work. Lots of people that my team talks to tell us that they can't stay home because they need to work to pay the rent, or to support their family.
I’m a Libra rising, so I’ve always tried to see both sides of an issue, so I think that made me a little skeptical in the beginning of how real this pandemic was. But it’s definitely real.
As a librarian, my job is to connect people to information, so working as a contract tracer is a perfect fit for my skill set. I'm glad to contribute, and I'm proud to be part of an effort to stop the spread of a virus that is proving to be very contagious. I miss being a librarian—I'm sure we would all enjoy it if life seemed like it was back to normal. But I got into library work so that I could serve the community and help people. This is just an extension of that.
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