The Race to Investigate a Coronavirus Outbreak at a Georgia Prep School
Georgia reopened early, and the graduating seniors of the Lovett School celebrated at parties large and small. Then came the positive COVID-19 tests, the media coverage, and the refusals to speak to contact tracers.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/the-race-to-investigate-a-coronavirus-outbreak-at-a-georgia-prep-school
By Monday, Lovett was on CNN’s home page. That afternoon, a Fulton epidemiologist named Juliana Prieto provided scripts for contact tracers to use when calling Lovett families. “You do not have to answer any question you do not feel comfortable answering,” the scripts explained. A tracer soon reported that, of his first six calls, five went to voice mail, and the one parent he reached had “declined to talk.” That night, an epidemiologist named Carson Telford, who was helping with the tracing effort, informed his colleagues that he wasn’t having any luck either. “Only 1 parent would provide information,” he wrote. Later, Telford shared a text exchange he’d had with another Lovett parent. “I will not help you,” the parent wrote. “You are a fraud. Leave me and all the Lovett families and kids alone. Get the Lord on Board and go volunteer if you have this much time to stalk social media. The entire Lovett family is onto you and your dishonesty. You did not get our names from the nurse—that would be a violation and they would never provide that private info. Leave us alone, please.”