Contact tracing - Printable Version
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: Emergency (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-11.html)
+--- Forum: Covid-19 (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: Contact tracing (/thread-19870.html)
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: Emergency (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-11.html)
+--- Forum: Covid-19 (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: Contact tracing (/thread-19870.html)
RE: Contact tracing - Mick - 06-21-2020
(06-21-2020, 05:00 PM)CardinalSagehen Wrote: I think we need to execute competently on basic, voluntary forms of tracing, including most notably a nationwide, opt-in contact tracing app with a robust PR campaign behind it. We should do this before moving to involuntary tracing, which I’d also support if the situation were grave enough and we had executed competently on everything else first. Right now, it’s hard to say what’s necessary because we have sucked so badly at the basics.
Go to Setings / Privacy / Health / Covid-19 Exposure Notifications on your iPhone or the equivalent on your Android phone. You will see that Apple and Google have done some of their part by making contact tracing APIs available already. The feature is totally opt-in, and data storage is decentralized and anonymized. Both companies have vowed never to use the data for commercial purposes and to kill the APIs after Covid-19 has passed. Only public health officials are supposed to be able to see the data, and I’m not quite clear on this, but I believe it might be anonymous data for them, too.
Importantly, the tracing feature uses local Bluetooth signals, not GPS, to record proximity to others that turn out to be infected.
An app doesn’t have to be used correctly and honestly by everyone to make a difference. I think even 10-15% penetration of the American populace (with a natural uptick in the hardest-hit areas) would start to matter.
Contact notification is immediate. Notified contacts would presumably get tested quickly and prevent further spreading.
Our software industry is unparalleled and second to none, but apparently we can’t release a simple Bluetooth app because we have 50 states running in different directions and no federal Internet privacy laws to govern this sort of thing.
As a result, for now, the contact tracing features on all of our smartphones remain dormant and useless. I’d love to see what we can do with a real effort around these apps and a federal privacy framework to govern them.
There’s a bipartisan bill in Congress right now called the Exposure Notification Privacy Act. I haven’t read it, but at a high level, I believe something like this is necessary to help us navigate the obvious privacy issues and move toward better, faster, safer use of technology for contact tracing.
IIRC, only four states have approved this (just Alabama, South Carolina, North Dakota and Virginia), and quite a number of very prominent states have expressly rejected it, including AZ, CA, CO, DE, ME, MD, MI, MO, OH, PA, SD, TN, TX, WA, WV, WI, WY.
https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/05/covid-19-exposure-notification-api-states/
RE: Contact tracing - Goose - 06-21-2020
(06-21-2020, 04:19 PM)M T Wrote: Goose, you may have been talking about either the patient who had a positive test, or a close contact. I will presume you meant only the person with the positive test.No MT, I mean exactly what I said. Track and trace basically won't work, particularly with this virus, if you do not also quarantine the close contacts. Some of those contacts may test positive immediately when contacted, and therefore become cases to track and trace themselves. That is simple. The close contacts that don't test positive must also be quarantined because they have a high probability of becoming positive. When they do, they will spread the disease for several days (at least) before they become sick (if they ever do). This significantly defeats the purpose of track and trace. The "win" of track and trace is forcing only high probability subjects into quarantine, not the entire population as we have now. Some people will lose two weeks out of their life that will turn out not to have been necessary, but that is how it is. That is why determining who is a "close" contact is a bit of an art, not a science. People who get sick and test positive usually stay home anyway. It is the ones that aren't yet sick that will do the spreading.
Quote:I think you could ease what you described a bit: The "county run facility" could be a hotel/motel/dorm, not a jail.Yes, that is why I said facility. Not intending to jail people. Hauling them off involuntarily was only recommended when they refuse to cooperate (name contacts) and/or quarantine themselves. Most people will probably prefer to stay at home, which is fine IF they can/will met the quarantine requirements. However, people cooperate much more readily when they know they really have no choice.
Quote:The patient would be confined, but would have meals brought in, have bed, bathroom, TV, access to Internet & phone, etc. No visitors (but families/cohabitants in quarantine would be kept together, and probably could remain until the last ends his/her quarantine). It certainly is less onerous than being in a hospital the entire time (what China did).Family members are a bit of a problem. If you all quarantine together, the quarantine has to be extended to ensure no family member got infected on the 13th day of the last positive patient's original quarantine period. The incubation period is a bit unknown, but that would double the quarantine length most probably. Testing on day 13 won't help because the incubation period would not have passed. The quarantine therefore starts over whenever a family member who was negative tests positive. This naturally means that family members who are not sick can't go to work, but that would also be true if they quarantined separately. It just prevents the quarantine from restarting on everybody else.
Quote:A less optimal approach is to allow the individual to wear a location monitoring device to confirm that they stay home, as their choice rather than being moved to a county-run facility. This has the risk of their infecting others that may come to the house (household members, food delivery, etc.) and they spread it further.Probably it isn't IMHO. It is people who aren't yet sick (close contacts of those who are sick) and some people who are not sick enough to get tested. These people just get on with their daily lives and in so doing spread the disease. The latter group we generally won't find except as a contact of somebody who got sick and was tested. This isn't optimal because there will be a significant delay in finding these people. We can eliminate the spread from the first group with track and trace pretty much for sure as they aren't sick yet and haven't spread the disease (yet).
---
But, we don't really know that the disease is being spread significantly by individuals who know they have tested positive.
Quote:So, I'm not sure I would yet support this approach. I think the voluntary isolation in a county facility is a good option, but unless you know someone is leaving their quarantine, I'm not quite ready for involuntary movement to a facility. I would support involuntary location tracking during quarantine.Works for me, but remember, it is all of them, not just the ones who tested positive.
RE: Contact tracing - CardinalSagehen - 06-21-2020
(06-21-2020, 06:20 PM)Mick Wrote:(06-21-2020, 05:00 PM)CardinalSagehen Wrote: I think we need to execute competently on basic, voluntary forms of tracing, including most notably a nationwide, opt-in contact tracing app with a robust PR campaign behind it. We should do this before moving to involuntary tracing, which I’d also support if the situation were grave enough and we had executed competently on everything else first. Right now, it’s hard to say what’s necessary because we have sucked so badly at the basics.
Go to Setings / Privacy / Health / Covid-19 Exposure Notifications on your iPhone or the equivalent on your Android phone. You will see that Apple and Google have done some of their part by making contact tracing APIs available already. The feature is totally opt-in, and data storage is decentralized and anonymized. Both companies have vowed never to use the data for commercial purposes and to kill the APIs after Covid-19 has passed. Only public health officials are supposed to be able to see the data, and I’m not quite clear on this, but I believe it might be anonymous data for them, too.
Importantly, the tracing feature uses local Bluetooth signals, not GPS, to record proximity to others that turn out to be infected.
An app doesn’t have to be used correctly and honestly by everyone to make a difference. I think even 10-15% penetration of the American populace (with a natural uptick in the hardest-hit areas) would start to matter.
Contact notification is immediate. Notified contacts would presumably get tested quickly and prevent further spreading.
Our software industry is unparalleled and second to none, but apparently we can’t release a simple Bluetooth app because we have 50 states running in different directions and no federal Internet privacy laws to govern this sort of thing.
As a result, for now, the contact tracing features on all of our smartphones remain dormant and useless. I’d love to see what we can do with a real effort around these apps and a federal privacy framework to govern them.
There’s a bipartisan bill in Congress right now called the Exposure Notification Privacy Act. I haven’t read it, but at a high level, I believe something like this is necessary to help us navigate the obvious privacy issues and move toward better, faster, safer use of technology for contact tracing.
IIRC, only four states have approved this (just Alabama, South Carolina, North Dakota and Virginia), and quite a number of very prominent states have expressly rejected it, including AZ, CA, CO, DE, ME, MD, MI, MO, OH, PA, SD, TN, TX, WA, WV, WI, WY.
https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/05/covid-19-exposure-notification-api-states/
Thanks for the link. That’s really too bad. It’s exactly my point and one reason why I’m so frustrated.
First, it’s asinine that we can move freely amongst states, but states get to make these decisions autonomously. Of course, the situation is different in different places, but when it comes to certain solutions like contact tracing, scale matters.
Second, the public disagrees - 60% of Americans trust Big Tech to oversee contact tracing, even though most Americans realize their privacy could be compromised (recent NextGov poll).
Third, what have these states delivered as an alternative in terms of contact tracing, and how well is it working? In general, it seems like they’re game for manual contact tracing, which is fine as part of the solution but inherently narrow and slow. And by the way, manual contact tracing invades privacy quite a bit more than the Apple and Google solution, which is anonymous.
I believe federal legislation remains important precisely for this reason - to hold states and counties to certain privacy standards while paving the way for pragmatic, nationwide solutions as well.