Virologists and scientists repeated like a mantra these past years: a pandemic flu is possible. It reached us with prepotence, death, desperation, fears, depression this year.
A pandemic flu changes the world but, in the middle what the world can do for trying to prevent new Sars-Cov-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) or Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) patients?
Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response Project Johns Hopkins Project on Ethics and Governance of D
This way of surveillance, contact tracing, is extremely good because in complete anonymity is possible to stay informed in case we meet a positive patient. Plus, smartphone with the time became another part, better, an extension of our body, like masks and hands cleaner, so, said it, it is more than normal that governments want to adopt this sytem for keeping under control a pandemic flu reducing the risks of infections. People can't live without smartphone.
The Johns Hopkins University is the American University that everyday give us a fresh prospect of the point where we are at the moment in terms of infections and new cases; dead people, new cases, healed ones.
We started to recognize its page and everyday we wait anxiously to see the latest news.
Said that, the JHU "recognized the importance of helping to guide this process" as written in the book.
Some people are skeptical regarding this method, because of privacy and other ethical aspects. Let's see: there are three kind of approaches with the digitalization of the Covid-19: the one adopted by South Korea the strongest one; then a minimal approach and contact notification. In general digital data can be shared with public health authorities.
These apps sees the location in general but they don't register it and there is complete anonymity. Apart the fact that positives to Covid should stay quarantined at home, but, let's say for example that a sick person is at the grocery story; if he/she communicated to the app his/her positivity, cheerful and still healthy people who met him/her along the way will be alerted of the good news: they spotted, met along their way a positive!
Oh my!
Of course no one will know who the infected person is for privacy.
These apps are central in the pandemic process that it is going on for reducing the spread of, in particular SARS-COV-2 and Covid-19 because both these illnesses are not a joke; a pandemic means a shock for economy and for the social existence of people. It's a heavy period, sometimes not brief and of course there is more unhappiness in general.
Contact tracing means identifiying positives, people they met along the way, close contacts, then quarantine them, monitoring the situation of people in quarantine, in case of positives at home the progression of the illness.
It's not the first time that smart phones and contact tracing had begun to develop this modality; HIV, gonorrhea, Ebola, although of course with different purposes.
A pandemic need a strong response and must pass also through digital tracking.
Highly recommended.
You can download this ebook for free in the site of the JHU.
Anna Maria Polidori
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