Tracking Shoe Leather

When it comes time to choose the weirdest and most novel expressions of 2020, there will be some fierce competition. I’m getting my vote in early: Shoe-Leather Tracer.

As so often happens in life, once you become aware of something, it suddenly appears everywhere. I first heard the term Shoe-Leather Tracer a few weeks ago, while doing some socially distanced socialising with my partner and a dear friend at the end of a hot May day. My beloved and I sat side-by-side on camping chairs on the pavement just after dusk, our canine companion bouncing between us, while our mate perched on their front doorstep a few metres away. We were all — minus the terrier — dressed in shorts and t-shirts, sipping cold white wine while we aired and shared our doubts about how we would get through the next stage of life in the age of Coronavirus: contact tracing. I put my bets on the much-touted track-and-trace app — which is supposed to lead us out of lockdown and win us back our freedom — failing spectacularly, because not a soul trusts the UK government to safeguard our data while ostensibly ensuring our physical safety. In response, my friend, a specialist in public health, introduced me to the mythic figure of the Shoe-Leather Tracer.

The term is not, in fact, new. Shoe-Leather Epidemiology has its origins about 170 years ago and some six miles from where I enjoyed my late-night glass of…