More than anything I suspect this is a result of allowing so much unfiltered spam calls. If you only get one unexpected, unknown call a month you will almost always answer it. If you get three a day you will almost never answer it.

We are allowing private businesses and scammers to steal the “commons” of our societal attention. We are doing a very poor job of keeping useful communications channels open: almost every communication medium people rely on for important information gets cluttered with must-ignore spam, making it decreasingly likely an important message is actually received.

I'm now wondering if it was an attempt at contact tracing. Had they simply stated what they wanted in the message I would have been pretty likely to call them back myself or answer a later call.

I have no idea where they got my cell phone number from, but the whole thing seems poorly handled at best. Anyone with legitimate business will state the nature of that business and allow for a return call. There's just so many solutions to this problem but nearly zero aligned with incentives.

Yep. That was probably about COVID. Health privacy laws prohibit even the vague mention of a condition. The caller has no way of knowing if they have the right phone number, and the last thing you want is "Attention, Rando McUltrarunner at 42 Crustacean Crest Drive, Cleveland, Ohio! You have been infected with COVID! Run, don't walk to your nearest testing facility!" on some stranger's voicemail. Or worse, "We are following up to see if you're doing well after your abortion" ending up on the voicemail or texting app of a 15-year-old girl whose parents might have access to her phone.

Source: Recently completed my company's mandatory annual HIPAA training.

It's not IT-grade authentication, but for wetware it works.

Your doctor's office can do it because you probably have an existing patient relationship, and you already filled out that paperwork on your first visit.

But in the situation of a cold-calling contact tracer, you haven't signed anything at all, so all they can say is "This is the health department and we want to talk to you."

But it would be a good idea nonetheless, it only requires to be accompanied by a serious information campaign preparing first time receivers for the surprise.

No clue how widespread this is, but I can't exactly blame people for assuming any call or voicemail they get is a scam, there are so many out there.

I can, of course, listen to every voicemail, but that's not much better than just picking up the phone when I get a spam call.

So basically the only reason I check my voicemail is to get rid of the notification on my phone

I'm sure there are bills in the works, but those same bills are likely bundled along with completely unrelated nonsense.

Of course, you may not be comfortable with giving Google access to this data...

I actively turned my voicemail off completely.

There is simply no-one who I want to talk to who would choose to leave me a voicemail if I don't answer.

Yep. I never answer unrecognized numbers anymore, and nobody I've talked to about it does, either.

Welcome to what society looks like when social trust declines. It will keep getting worse unless and until people discover that the commons actually matters and is more than something to scam and find some way to parasitically monetize.

[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/less-than-half-in-singapore-wi...

Viral Load Peaks before symptom offset.

> Available evidence from contact tracing reported by countries suggests that asymptomatically infected individuals are much less likely to transmit the virus than those who develop symptoms. A subset of studies and data shared by some countries on detailed cluster investigations and contact tracing activities have reported that asymptomatically-infected individuals are much less likely to transmit the virus than those who develop symptoms.

http://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/corona-virus/transmiss...

Agree with the main thrust of the point but if everyone did stay home for 14 days you may well eradicate the virus. Problem of course that its economically/socially/medically impossible to facilitate a complete 14 day lockdown.

This would not be possible. There are at least several species of animals (mikes, civets, and bats) than can transmit this virus. We would need to quarantine and test, or kill, each and every one of these animals to be sure we eliminate this virus, or else it will eventually make its way back to humans.

My opinion, based on what I read, is that this will be a bit of a scourge until such time as enough people have immunity from either catching it or getting vaccinated.

Over time, as this new coronavirus makes its way through the human population, the experts it to become less virulent in general and/or appear less often. [0]

[0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor...

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...

I also wonder how effective the vaccine is at preventing its receivers from even reaching that asymptomatic but already contagious stage. If "90%" is just "90% less reach symptomatic stage" then the percentage of receivers that are prevented from reaching contagiousness could be much lower.

This would basically mean that the virus is almost guaranteed to become endemic despite vaccination (unless another vaccine also removes the contagious stage quite well) and that everyone who doesn't get a vaccine will eventually test their immune system against the virus.

Natural immunity often follows a similar pattern. After a while you become susceptible to a light reinfection but the immune system will be in a very good position for a quick - but not instantaneous - victory on its second encounter with the virus. Under those circumstances, herd immunity effects fail to realize unless the first wave is so lightning fast that it fizzles out before the immune systems of early survivors (or the similarly vaccinated) fall back into standby mode.

1) When I did try to install it said I need to update to a new OS, meaning my five year old phone likely wasn't good enough. 2) My local app doesn't provide alerts to me rather it alerts government contact tracers who today stated that they are only responding to alerts regarding medical/care home workers. I am neither. 3) My phone is not with me at work, the place where I interact with the most people by far, rendering the entire scheme basically useless.

But yes, I would get a vaccine in a heartbeat.

I don't think that's correct. Pre-symptomatic phase is supposed to be about 2-3 days. I wouldn't describe that as 'long' before they show symptoms.

In the US, people are going to work (or other events) WITH positive test results. Some because they won't get paid otherwise, others because they want to make a political statement, and some because they're ... well, I dunno why...

So, yes, even having people stay home after a positive test would be helpful, because currently, they aren't even doing that.

Some health departments have taken it upon themselves to arrest people that won’t sign documents.

It’s like HOA battles, except now you can be put in jail on a whim.

Even being an common case, and will likely be overturned in courts, it’s just too risky.

Which health departments, what documents, and how many people?

And how did they get arrest powers?

http://www.wvih.com/wp1/index.php/2020/07/19/couple-on-house...

"Some health departments have taken it upon themselves to enforce quarantine on people that just tested positive." doesn't really inspire the same kind of outrage.

[citation needed]