At first blush, I was pretty against any kind of digital tracking power freely handed over. Frankly, it feels Orwellian and statist. But there are solid arguments that it... might be ok? Maybe even necessary. To start with, we cannot trace the contacts of every new case in a country of 300+ million. But on the other hand, we all want to get the economy back up and going, at least a fair amount more than what we have. Apps and phone geolocation with anonymized data provides a possible tool for notifying people that they should be tested if they were in contact.
This article is about groups thinking through how this might be done, done voluntarily and with some level of privacy that respects our values. I'm not sold on it, but think it's certainly worth considering as a pathway forward, knowing it also opens Pandora's Box (or more accurately, opens it MORE).
From the article:
But with the instantaneous tracing promised by digital technology, said Oxford’s Luca Ferretti, an expert in pathogen dynamics and the first author of the Science paper, only 60% of cases would have to be isolated and 60% of contacts traced — and possibly as few as 50% and 40%, respectively.
Even these relatively low rates, he and his colleagues calculated, “could bring R below 1 and therefore effectively control the epidemic.” And they can do so more quickly than today’s stay-at-home orders, business closures, and other social distancing steps alone, and prevent a Covid-19 resurgence after the current pandemic fades — without re-imposing economically crippling social-distancing policies.
People should have the right to participate or not, both the NextTrace and Oxford researchers say. If uptake is too low, however, the digitally enabled instantaneous tracing wouldn’t find enough contacts to stop an epidemic.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/02...for-contact-tracing-digital-tools-could-help/
This article is about groups thinking through how this might be done, done voluntarily and with some level of privacy that respects our values. I'm not sold on it, but think it's certainly worth considering as a pathway forward, knowing it also opens Pandora's Box (or more accurately, opens it MORE).
From the article:
But with the instantaneous tracing promised by digital technology, said Oxford’s Luca Ferretti, an expert in pathogen dynamics and the first author of the Science paper, only 60% of cases would have to be isolated and 60% of contacts traced — and possibly as few as 50% and 40%, respectively.
Even these relatively low rates, he and his colleagues calculated, “could bring R below 1 and therefore effectively control the epidemic.” And they can do so more quickly than today’s stay-at-home orders, business closures, and other social distancing steps alone, and prevent a Covid-19 resurgence after the current pandemic fades — without re-imposing economically crippling social-distancing policies.
People should have the right to participate or not, both the NextTrace and Oxford researchers say. If uptake is too low, however, the digitally enabled instantaneous tracing wouldn’t find enough contacts to stop an epidemic.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/02...for-contact-tracing-digital-tools-could-help/
