Backtracking just a bit, you can't use tracking TB as an optimistic forecaster of the results of tracking COVID.
TB can be successfully treated, so tracking saves lives, while COVID isn't vulnerable to any know treatment: it's both an irresistible force and an immovable object.
In fact, if you can even get yourself tested for COVID and you test positive, the only treatment at this point is "Go home, see if you develop symptoms, and if they get bad enough, go to the hospital."
Agreed that having a tracking system in place
may ultimately prove beneficial, but at today's date it's merely an experiment in technology.
Tracking COVID at today's date isn't likely to save so much as one single life!
This system will result in zillions of false positives if, as it appears, the breadth of its net is defined by the limits of technology rather than the reality/necessity of the situation.
I'm not sure why you say that. A contacted person is NOT a false positive it is simply a data point to be checked and there is no assumption of contagion one way or the other until the contact has been tested. Zillions of false positives would not be the result of contact tracking rather of
faulty testing methodologies.
In my context, there are two types of false positive:
- A recorded contact with a person outside of the 6 foot "zone of danger."
- An alert that one of those people has tested positive.
And since Bluetooth extends ~300 feet, considerably farther than the danger zone, using it IS a faulty testing methodology, and the system WILL generate a zillion false positives.
And a lot of people will experience unnecessary anxiety as a result.
...and potentially a lot of people will get into treatment early enough to escape the worst ravages of the disease and won't be shopping at Walmart and spreading the disease to potentially hundred of others. Thorough contact tracking and rapid accurate testing could prevent another social and economic shutdown this fall when COVID-19 is believed will resurge.
Given what might be accomplished a day or two of concern seems a miniscule price to pay for the long term benefit of the world around us and should you be tested positive, the potential for personal reward is huge.
Sure, if a treatment is ever developed, early warning will certainly save lives, and
accurate early warning will do so expeditiously, but all that's no more than wishful thinking at the moment.
At the moment, the lack of universal testing will combine with the false positives and result in MUCH anxiety...more than once in some instances. And it's actually got the potential to overwhelm the system.
And the results will be skewed accordingly.
Agreed, it might skew the course of the pandemic by significantly reducing its effect on the nation and the world.
No, the "spread" of the disease will be wildly exaggerated by all the false positives.
A follow-up system to track the outcome of all the positives would be useful. I wonder if it's been contemplated?
...
that is far outside the realm of Apple/Google's API.
Wouldn't follow-up tracking have to rely on and interact with the Apple/Google database?
You've got a thread of rosy optimism interwoven with the stark, dark reality of the situation.
I hope your faith is warranted.
More: Unless, of course, they can manipulate the range of their Bluetooth to limit it to 6 feet or so.
