Contact tracing diary
For the last 10 days, I have been keeping a diary. Not for my memoirs or mental health, but for contact tracing.
TL,DR; here's the PDF download.
Why?
First, I am due to start providing transport to a friend to regular hospital appointments. It means I'm going to be increasing my chances of both transmitting and contracting the virus to some degree.
Secondly, it seems that contact tracing is pretty important in helping limit the spread. While our government looks at different ways to facilitate this via smartphone solutions, it's a while off being widely introduced and I expect this effort will moreso be for facilitating getting people back to work rather than contact tracing, as per other countries.
Finally, after only a few days of writing I realised just how much moving I was doing even while respecting the social distancing and hygiene guidelines. Writing it and realising this also helped me to stop slipping into moments of complacency. Now that the majority of us are observing the lockdown, there will be less to tracing to do but we are still moving around for essentials (food, caring for dependents) and we have only just started to observe it – it might be at least worth capturing your movements in the week just gone by.
How
I had a look at what the HSPC has communicated on contact tracing. I decided to just start keeping a simple free-form paper diary of what I got up to and who I saw/met, if anyone, and see what shook out. From that, I started to see patterns of things I noted and found ways to go back and account for days when I didn't journal on the given day (we are never that consistent, even with more free time). I've taken what I've learned and turned it into a paper template which contains:
- Daily diary: a structured way to capture each day's activity
- Contacts list: a place to list and add frequent or recent contacts, including what is deemed to be your household
A paper template?
Yes, paper. You could of course put the same content under headings into a Notes app on your phone or lash it into Word, Google Docs but I figure:
- It's somewhat sensitive information, particularly contacts - I feel better keeping it on paper.
- If I become ill, it's easier to hand over a paper record than to start figuring out digital data transfer. If the HSE don't want it, my household has it and can act on it.
- Easy to back up - I can scan it or take a photo if I want to keep a digital back-up.
- Easier to write - I found more focus doing it on paper vs a screen.
I might put a bit more shape on this if it's useful or I get any feedback. If a Google Docs, Word or other template would be useful I'll pop one of those together. Let me know at @cloudsteph.
Take care, stay well.