Hello fellow RABA cyclists,
As I was preparing to embark on one of our RABA rides recently, which was well-attended by probably 20-25 people, it occurred to me, as a physician who’s been volunteering with the Dept. Health in recent months to do COVID testing, that I really didn’t know 1/2 the people standing around me in the parking lot and then riding in a pace line with me.
What if one of them took sick and tested positive for COVID in the next few days: how would any of us find out that we’d been exposed?
If I’m exposed and don’t know it, I could be putting all my family and my small circle of friends at risk, many of whom are in the “high risk” category (> 65 yo, medical problems, etc).
If we ALL had the COVIDWISE phone app, that would notify us, but too few Virginians have that to make it sufficiently reliable for notification at this time. And we can’t expect someone seriously sick with COVID to identify & call all the fellow riders he/she rode with. What we need is a method more attuned to RABA and its members to help us protect each other.
Therefore, I have volunteered to act as an intermediary, and your RABA Board has approved my plan. Once a week, starting today, I will post a note on the main RABA message board and ask that if anyone reading it has tested positive for COVID during the last week to let me know their name, contact info, and RABA rides they’ve been on the last 10 days, assuring them I’d keep all their information confidential.
If I get no response, there’d be no more RABA messages from me until the next week. However, if I get one or more positive responses, I’d put out a supplemental COVID message on the RABA board, saying something like: “Someone on XYZ ride last Tuesday tested positive for COVID; if you were on that ride, please let me know and I, in concert with the Dept Health, will determine if you had sufficient contact with that person to warrant getting tested.” Any names I get from that message I will give to a Dept Health contact tracer to personally call and see if the contact is significant. Thus, I will not be giving out any names of COVID victims or contacts to anyone in RABA, only to the Dept Health, thereby keeping it anonymous.
The recent outbreak clusters in colleges in the first days as they reopen attest that the virus is still around and dangerous. I have yet to hear of any RABA riders coming down with COVID after being in a group ride, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it occurred eventually. I feel it important we do everything possible to protect the greater membership.
Best wishes for continued health and safe biking,
Dave
David Elliott, MD