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In the midst of today’s pandemic, I look around and realize how fortunate my family and I are to live in this wonderful area. We have the lowest cases of Covid cases in all of our surrounding counties. That has to be true mostly due to a common sense approach to social distancing and limiting exposure.
The thing is, however careful we all are, there is still a chance that you or a loved one could be exposed to this potentially deadly virus. If that should happen, would you be able to recall all the people you may have interacted with in the last 14 days? I know I wouldn’t.

So, when a contact trace volunteer comes to your home or hospital bed and attempts to put a usable list and timeline together, there is a great probability that some or even one contact could be missed. With that in mind, would it not be easier and quicker to share the name of an individual that has a potentially deadly disease and allow community members to respond as to whether they have had contact with one individual?
I fully understand the right to privacy but at times there might be the necessity or a desire to give up a small bit of privacy for the ability to control this virus at a faster pace.

There is no shame in allowing others to know you are sick. There is no shame in contracting a virus that is so easy to spread by people that have no symptoms. I think giving up a bit of privacy should actually be looked at as a gift to others in allowing faster diagnosis and isolation if necessary and could be potentially lifesaving.

If I were to be infected, I would want any person I had contact with to be aware of that fact. The more we know the safer we are. This, along with Contact Tracing as originally being done, should help stem the tide of this pandemic even faster and allow us all to get back to normal.
This may not be a popular opinion in today’s age of fear of giving up our rights. There is another way to look at this though. Are the rights of the healthy any less important? Would this not help more of the people in our county?
It just seems like a bit of common sense could help speed our overall recovery.

Cato Junge

Tryon