Today I started volunteering in what we call "active vigilance teams".
We call every day to people who are quarantined (automatic for anyone who flies into Azores, others signaled by public health teams' contact tracing) and ask for temperature readings and respiratory symptoms, reiterate the need to stay home, etc.). If they fail to answer (maximum of 6 attempts per day) 2 days in a row we activate a local team. If they answer and refuse to talk, or we notice something is off, we immediately activate field teams, who can call the police.
It's quite rewarding, must be a world of difference from making sales calls etc. Most people are tremendously nice and thankful, though we get the occasional pouty teenager that didn't want to be woken up, or people so illiterate that make the conversation very challenging.
Thing is, with the increase in cases and suspects, human resources for this kind of work will be stretched too thin. I expect that a month from now we'll be calling only positive cases to make sure they are alright.
Working from the inside gives me access to a lot more info, and the daunting logistics that go into something like this.
I think my competences are better suited for this sort of work (or domiciliary care) than intra-hospital urgency stuff. On this later aspect I'm on a third line to be called, which means I will go only if (when, I guess) things get really bad.
I was feeling so useless at home and wondered who was doing this vigilance work, so e-mailed our health secretary saying I was available for anything, pay or no pay. The big lady herself called me one hour later to thank me and I started on this immediately.
Like the way the NY Post needs five pics to show what happened.