While U.S. struggles to roll out coronavirus contact tracing, Germany has been doing it from the start

BERLIN — There's no sophisticated technology in the northern Berlin office where Filiz Degidiben spends her days tracking down contacts of people infected with the novel coronavirus.

Degidiben picks up the phone and dials her first case for the day: an 82-year-old man whose lab results have come back that morning. It’s one of just two positive cases in the district, down from a peak of around 30 in March.“Very nice,” he replies with wry Berlin humor. The whole conversation lasts just over 10 minutes. It’s a simple case, but that’s been normal since social distancing restrictions were implemented, health workers here say. Someone from the health department will call him daily to check in on his symptoms.Germany’s trace-and-quarantine approach is by no means flawless. In about 65 percent of the cases here, health authorities have no idea how a person was infected. Asymptomatic carriers are no doubt falling through the cracks.

“Testing is nice, but if you’re tested or not tested and are in quarantine, it makes no difference,” Larscheid said. Testing could also lull someone into a false sense of security, he said — a negative result might mean it’s just too early for an infection to register on a test.Reinickendorf began to build its contact-tracing team in March, as an outbreak in a kindergarten went beyond the capacity of the usual contingent of health officials.

Other countries have managed complex cases with mobile tracking apps — mandatory, in some cases — that help health officials stay ahead of potential outbreaks. But such efforts have been more tricky in privacy-conscious Europe.Germany’s app has been delayed, and authorities had to reverse course on one that would have involved centrally stored data. Instead, to be mindful of privacy concerns, data will be completely anonymized and won’t be available to health officials.

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