According to an NSW press conference this morning, a very few but still noteworthy amount of people are reportedly lying to contract tracers about where they’ve been. And, please, contact tracers are our best asset in stopping the spread of this virus, folks. Don’t be suss, it’s not worth it.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian confirmed that NSW Health had screened 45,000 people for testing and reported 16 new community transmitted cases of COVID-19 over the last 24 hours since 8 PM last night.
Fortunately, 14 of them are linked to previously confirmed cases and five are linked to household contacts. It’s a huge drop from yesterday’s 35 cases, and largely due to our saving grace: contact tracing.
NSW recorded 16 new locally acquired cases of #COVID19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, 14 of which are linked to previously confirmed cases.
No new overseas-acquired cases were recorded in the same period. pic.twitter.com/ICvpPvFFoZ
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) July 4, 2021
And, that last point is a big reason why I’m mad as hell over this next fact: apparently, a few people have been lying to the contact tracing girlies. As that old Vine goes: why the fuck you lying? why you always lying? Oh, my God, stop fucking lying.
When asked by a reporter if there have been people who lied about where they have been in the last few weeks, NSW Chief Medical Officer Kerry Chant admitted that there have been a few instances of it happening.
“Generally speaking, the vast majority of citizens are doing the right thing,” she said via The Guardian‘s liveblog.
“But here have been instances where people have continued to visit others in their homes when they shouldn’t have been, and potentially have been other breaches.
“We just want people to know that we would much rather you tell us the truth, without consequences, so that we can actually find all those potential cases.”
The chief medical officer also assured that “any information that is given to public health will not be shared.
“It is important that when people are speaking to contact tracers, that they feel assured about the fact that we will hold information in a confidential way…
“Also, when our contract tracers are going back and looping around and confirming that when you become a case and confirming close contacts, we ask that you double-check that you haven’t had any breaches or any missteps.
“We’ll be sad if you have but please be open and honest with us. The consequences of not letting us know about a lapse are incredible at this sort of critical phase in our response.”
Premier Berejikilian and Dr. Chant said they could not say at this stage whether the two-week lockdown of the Greater Sydney, Blue Mountains, Central Coast, and Wollongong regions.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article wrongly called contact tracing, contract tracing. We have corrected all references to “contract tracing” and apologise for the error.
