Photo By 1st Lt. Anyah Peatross | First Lieutenant Riki Reynolds, commander of Company A, Task Force Oahu, Hawaii...... read more read more
Subscribe
The Hawai‘i National Guard Joint Task Force took on a new COVID-19 mission, days after the return of trans-Pacific travel to the Hawaiian Islands on Oct. 15, 2020. Guardsmen assigned to Task Force (TF) O‘ahu have been assisting the State of Hawai‘i’s Office of Enterprise Technology Services (ETS) and Department of Health in verifying test results of visitors registered in the Safe Travels Hawai‘i program since Oct. 21, 2020, at the 298th Multi-Functional Training Regiment located in Waimanalo, Hawai‘i.
The Safe Travels Hawai‘i program allows people to travel to the islands and skip the mandatory 14-day quarantine, provided they present a negative COVID-19 test. The test must be a Nucleic Acid Amplification Test from a certified Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment lab, and taken 72 hours before departing to the islands.
Within days of the program’s launch, a hiccup in the online system caused thousands of tests to appear unreadable and forced travelers to quarantine until their test results were verified. Government officials moved quickly to fix the problem and assigned Lizabeth Thomas from ETS to train a team of Guardsmen to support clearing the backlog.
“They were easy to train,” said Thomas. “The National Guard has done a fantastic job to get trained and up to speed with the process of manually verifying uploaded documents to put travelers in an exempt status, i.e., no more quarantine.”
As of Nov. 4, 2020, Soldiers with Company A, TF O‘ahu, assisted with backlog having reviewed and updated over 2,065 visitor test results and account status.
U.S. Army 1st Lt. Riki Reynolds, the commander of Company A, TF O‘ahu, leads a handful of Soldiers that make a difference in whether traveler’s test results require them to remain in quarantine.
“The backlog was pretty significant because of an issue in the program application,” said Reynolds. “It can only read a certain type of document. Travelers are sending pictures from their cell phone which can’t be verified by the systems artificial intelligence.”
However, there are other reasons for the backlog.
“Most times, the uploaded test result did not have the test collection date, or the test was taken outside the 72-hour window prior to departure,” added Thomas.
U.S. Army Sgts. Erick Arevalo and Ryan Pang, cavalry scouts with the Hawai‘i Army National Guard were trained to help identify and manually review travelers with ‘verification in process’ as their account status.
“Ms. Thomas helped make this process easy because of the training and information she shared,” said Pang. “It was effective in executing our daily mission.”
The team works on laptops in a classroom to analyze each traveler’s application status.
“Each account can take about a minute or more depending on the amount of research needed,” said Pang. “Some are easier because they’re already marked exempt and cleared by the state; and others we have to verify whether they’ve used one of the approved trusted testing partners.”
Some of the accounts proved a little more difficult, but the Guardsmen armed with their training were able to assist many travelers.
“The process also depends on the actual visitor and how complex their case may be as they may have multiple family members,” said Arevalo.
Improvements to the system’s programming and help from the Guardsmen have made it possible to get the backlog under control.
“Trusted travel partners improved lab test results by providing it in a single format,” said Thomas. “The Safe Travels Hawai‘i site guides travelers to which type of documents to upload. With these improvements, in addition to the manual verification process, it has made the backlog much smaller and more manageable.”
Travelers are encouraged to visit the Hawaiicovid19.com Safe Travels Hawai‘i site to access the latest information and requirements for planning a trip to Hawai‘i. Technical fixes to the online system were made reducing the need for manual verification support.
Hawai‘i’s COVID-19 response has about 800 Guardsmen supporting domestic missions on a daily basis that benefit multiple communities on six islands. While the work often varies from their primary military occupation - cross-training with government partners, organizations, and volunteers have ensured Guard members are up-to-speed and able to provide assistance on the frontlines of the pandemic.
“Be patient and keep up with (travel) guidance put out by the state,” said Arevalo. “It may help speed up the process when planning a trip to Hawai‘i.”
| Date Taken: | 11.17.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 11.17.2020 18:17 |
| Story ID: | 383159 |
| Location: | HONOLULU, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 287 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
This work, Hawaii Guard assist Safe Travels Hawai‘i program backlog, by 1LT Anyah Peatross, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT