Contact Tracing - how exactly is that gonna work anyway?

I haven't seen anything like that going on here. Been out to eat (outdoors) quite a few times and nobody is tracing anything.

There isn't a lot of structure around this in general so most businesses are left on their own to manage as well as they can - to the degree there is structure it is unique state to state.

I think you have the general idea correct. A simple scenario would be: staff person finds out they are positive. They do their best to determine when that contracted it and how many days they have been at work. Take the list for those days and give everyone who had potential exposure a heads up. There are lots of scenarios and there are a lot of potential loopholes. But, even if 50% effective it serves to mitigate risk.

The business that I work at has locations throughout the country but one of our largest facilities is in Virginia. When we identify a case we report to the state and they will conduct the formal contact tracing. We do internal tracking and contact tracing to facilitate the official process - in our case everyone coming in and out is logged as well as movement through to different parts of the facility (e.g. warehouse vs office vs. common area etc.)

As I said above, none of this is foolproof. The goal is to mitigate as much as possible whenever possible.

Luckily the facility I have referenced has had only 5 cases so far (low relative to the population) all have been traced to external source, none have transmitted to others within the facility and all have experienced mild symptoms and been able to return to work fully healthy.

We are pouring money into this to achieve this result but it is the right thing to do.

In the UK, to which we are trying to return, I understand you get a bar code or one of those square symbolly-thingees on your phone, and there's a reader that scans it when you enter an establishment. Then they know who was there if they need to get in touch. That's all second-hand, but seems like a good system to me.

And less stress, “built in” means available, not compulsory. A few people didn’t get thAt distinction when it was announced.

Again this could get political but here goes. The entire contact tracing seems like government over reach and certainly seems like a 1984 scenario at best. Even with this info it will not prevent transmission, and some people are completely asymptomatic.

I haven't been out much, but here in Toronto the protocol (since the reopening of bars and restos) is to give contact info when you enter. The largest strip club in the city recently had an exposure issue and had to contact 500 customers. Only 150 had given their real names and phone numbers.