So far, the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s efforts to trace COVID-19 patients has been a miserable failure.

On a good week, 25% of the people who have tested positive are contacted and able to be put into the system so that others they may have infected may be notified. Twenty-five percent? Actually we are surprised the number is that high.

Because of a complete lack of effort to control telephone scams, such as the “your car’s warranty is about to expire” and “your college loan payment is now due,” people will not answer the phone for a number they do not recognize.

We would rather miss an important call than waste our time and get our blood pressure up because some unscrupulous company is paying people to make these bogus calls in hopes of getting someone to make a bad decision and give them access to bank accounts or credit cards.

If elected officials would enforce the do-not-call lists — and, while at it, eliminate a lot of aggravation from other scammers — then legitimate businesses would be able to function more efficiently, and fewer senior citizens would get bilked out of their life savings.

We feel sorry for Michael Huff, director of testing and contact tracing for Pennsylvania. But instead of complaining that we don’t answer the phone, he should go back to his boss and the five or six governors that preceded him and ask why they caused this problem by not doing their job better.

In our business, we answer all our calls that come through. That includes our cellphones.

However, new-and-improved scammers manage to get the calls to appear to come from local exchanges. It never gives out a warning that the person calling can barely speak English; has no idea who you are; doesn’t even know if you own a car, let alone what kind of car; and they don’t care. As soon as they realize you aren’t biting, they either hang up or go into a filthy tirade, which is in surprisingly better English than the original pitch. Of course, there is also the “press nine to be taken off our list.” Yeah, right! That somehow gets you onto 20 more lists instead.

That is why Mr. Huff’s job is futile. Mr. Huff, go back to Harrisburg and tell the governor that this will never work until government solves the issue with fake calls. Meanwhile, please wear your mask.

— RV