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(06-16-2020 09:39 AM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(06-16-2020 08:14 AM)levydl Wrote:  

(06-16-2020 01:43 AM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(05-24-2020 12:23 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Masks (indoors) , limiting mass gatherings, social distancing as best you can ... these are things that will continue to be important even as we open more and more up. Combine those with contact tracing it would be even better. 100,000 dead despite incredible efforts. We need to continue to be vigilant even as we go about more normalized lives.

For this stuff to truly work and be effective you need people willing to put science ahead of their politics. But that's too much to ask from some folks of a certain PC viewpoint these days. So we get confusion and distrust along with less than perfect results

I don't think it's some nefarious ploy or PC run amok, as you suggest. The tracers need truthful answers, so they don't want it to seem like an inquisition. This is a common problem when having to gather accurate information about sensitive subjects.

Even if that's the true motive (and I remain quite skeptical of that), I don't see how not asking gets the interviewer any closer to "the truth". If you don't ask whether somebody recently attended a huge public event, you are basically just wasting time and money when it comes to contact tracing.

By asking more open-ended questions they are more likely to get the "true" answer. By showing the person that the interviewer is not interested in finding out if they are a political agitator or if they committed some criminal act during the protest or whatever, the person will more often disclose the accurate information. Again, this is a very well-developed technique for a very common issue faced by those collecting sensitive information. Ironically, the critics who insist that the interviewer should do it another, more direct way risk getting worse info all because it feels less PC.