With cases of COVID-19 ballooning in the U.S., it is becoming increasingly probable that contact tracing and surveillance will be a key component in restoring society to normalcy.
There is a proposal to use our smartphones for digital contact tracing. In the journal Science, a key paper by University of Oxford researchers recommends the technique. Even the European Data Protection Supervisor has advocated for an EU-wide app.
Meanwhile, after Singapore and South Korea used tracing apps as part of their strong response to the spread of COVID-19, governments in France and the UK (through its National Health Service) are developing their own tracing apps. And the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the method is under "aggressive evaluation" as projects in the U.S. sprout up from coast to coast.
The unprecedented collaboration on an inter-operable infrastructure between Apple and Google — which came together in two weeks and was announced a few days ago — has now set the stage for a robust, potentially global contact tracing system.
The idea of contact tracing is straightforward. When someone contracts a disease, public-health workers need to know who that person has had recent contact with to be able to locate, test and possibly isolate those contacts to stop the disease spreading even further.
For decades, this technique has required painstaking drudgery — interviewing patients about their every move, calling airlines and managers of restaurants, examining hotel records — to determine everyone that’s been exposed. This was the case in tracking the paths of HIV, Ebola and measles.
The challenge is that tracing each case typically takes many days.
In Wuhan, China, more than 9,000 epidemiologists performed this task, working in teams of five, according to the WHO. Latest figures show there are about 83,000 cases of COVID-19 in China. In the US, there are currently tens of thousands of new known cases every day; a former CDC director has said the country would need "an army of 300,000 people" for effective contact tracing.
There is a proposal to use our smartphones for digital contact tracing. In the journal Science, a key paper by University of Oxford researchers recommends the technique. Even the European Data Protection Supervisor has advocated for an EU-wide app.
Meanwhile, after Singapore and South Korea used tracing apps as part of their strong response to the spread of COVID-19, governments in France and the UK (through its National Health Service) are developing their own tracing apps. And the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the method is under "aggressive evaluation" as projects in the U.S. sprout up from coast to coast.
The unprecedented collaboration on an inter-operable infrastructure between Apple and Google — which came together in two weeks and was announced a few days ago — has now set the stage for a robust, potentially global contact tracing system.
The idea of contact tracing is straightforward. When someone contracts a disease, public-health workers need to know who that person has had recent contact with to be able to locate, test and possibly isolate those contacts to stop the disease spreading even further.
For decades, this technique has required painstaking drudgery — interviewing patients about their every move, calling airlines and managers of restaurants, examining hotel records — to determine everyone that’s been exposed. This was the case in tracking the paths of HIV, Ebola and measles.
The challenge is that tracing each case typically takes many days.
In Wuhan, China, more than 9,000 epidemiologists performed this task, working in teams of five, according to the WHO. Latest figures show there are about 83,000 cases of COVID-19 in China. In the US, there are currently tens of thousands of new known cases every day; a former CDC director has said the country would need "an army of 300,000 people" for effective contact tracing.
Posts
0 comments
Post a Comment