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A few thoughts: 1. There's a fixation on contact tracing without recognition that it's useless without isolation. In-home isolation will infect other occupants
by dirtyid 7y ago
A few thoughts:
1. There's a fixation on contact tracing without recognition that it's useless without isolation. In-home isolation will infect other occupants. Voluntary isolation doesn't scale. Asian countries doing effective test+trace+isolation already know this. Think of it terms of kill chain F2T2EA: find, fix, track, target, engage, assess. You have to execute the entire loop for effect. The ability to force people quarantine is probably a greater obstacle to liberty depending on local context that needs more discussion.
2. This is going to be EU's Huawei moment. Reliance on US tech for internal policy security that is subject to US political whims is going to cause further exacerbate calls of technological divestment. Who decides when covid19 crisis is over? What if EU want to keep contact tracing in place long term if it's the only ubiquitous system in place for reinstating schengen. I surmise some sort or global digital cordon sanitarie is going to be with us for a while, especially if we want to resume international travel.
- Eridrus 7y agoAny bit of reduced transmission helps. All we need is for R0<<1 and then this pandemic will end. Any contacts this finds that human contact tracers do not is a win.
- james_s_tayler 7y agoR_t < 1
- dirtyid 7y agoUnless Asian countries are erring on the extreme side of caution it seems wise to assume test+tracing is not sufficient for R0<1. Their effective responses all employ techno-authoritarian interventions: wrist bracelets, GPS tracking, publicly releasing travel routes, QR health codes, out of home quarantine etc. This includes democratic countries. There's an ongoing myopia in the west that is failing to fully interrogate the solutions from Asian countries who are doing well in it's full scope and ramifications on liberty and applicability based on appetite for sacrificing liberty. Media is happy to elevate testing and contact tracing, without acknowledging the authoritarian followup. E: I'm just suggesting it's worth discussing the system in aggregate rather than piecemeal.
- jjgreen 7y agoUnicode has a ≪ :-)
- Mvandenbergh 7y agoEven if R_t is at or just above 1, that still lets us have a slow upwards curve with repeated short lockdowns. The Oxford paper found that given the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, 60% of people leaving the house would need to use an app like this (not 60% of the whole population). But that is an evaluation of a single measure: phone contact tracing followed by prompt isolation of contacts. If you combine that with other potential measures such as continued closure of high risk environments, potentially public mask wearing, etc. you might be able to get away with less than 60%.
- james_s_tayler 7y agoIt effectively means the entire household becomes quarantined. Depending on where you live that's actually not really much of a problem. We just do what we have to do.
- dirtyid 7y agoIt's a problem in the sense that you still don't want to infect more people than you have to, there's still 20% hospitalization rate. Though I agree it's easier to maintain quarantine in countries with lower density and larger houses / suburbs. But one additional problem identified is adherence, especially without sufficient incentive (i.e. economic), hence location tracking or forced out of home quarantines. People become unreliable at scale.
- tastroder 7y ago1 is addressed by pretty much epidemiological and technical paper on the matter, nobody thinks digital contact tracing is a silver bullet. 2 This is not "reliance on US tech for internal policy security", this is using a tool that significant parts of the population have in their pocket to fulfill a complementary task in pandemic management. G&A make it easier to use it for managing the currently ongoing pandemic. "Who decides when covid19 crisis is over?" is pretty straight-forward in Germany, the government with their health ministry and external agencies and in coordination with the EU. G&A provide tools to switch this off on a regional basis. This is far from a "Huawei moment" because the tech side of it is pretty much a side note to history in terms of overall relevance.
- dirtyid 7y ago1. Yes, scientists and policy makers know. But the average citizens who will be subject to these interventions largely do not. Western MSM has been extremely cautious not emphasizing the unpalatable elements of isolation strategies. And before that, the privacy breaking technical elements of contact tracing apps. These conversations are overdue even if societies eventually decide they are politically impossible. 2. This article is literally about US tech companies "refuse to budge" on standards a sovereign backed during time of extreme crisis. It may very be that Apple provided a better argument, but the language suggest Germany was rebuffed, that is, it was an unilateral decision on Apple's part. Germany just found out how little influence it has over critical tools to their security. This is arguably much worse than a Huawei moment since Huawei ostensibly has alternate supply chains whereas US companies own the software ecosystem for all mobile devices. The tech side in both scenarios are both going to be historically incidental, but the political ramifications will be long lasting. Saying who decides covid19 is over is straight forward is like saying US declaring wars are over is straight forward. Maybe theoretically, but in reality not. What if EU wants these features permanent baked in as part of the future biosecurtiy system. What happens if G&A says no.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago> Reliance on US tech This is Germany. They are a US satellite state since 1945 and have only limited independence on strategic issues.