Experts tell us the path out of COVID-19 includes testing and contact tracing, which makes all the sense in the world. The problem is that contact tracing isn’t going to work. Perry Noonan had an excellent article on contact tracing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Ms. Noonan explained contact tracing as follows:
“[The idea] is to curb Covid-19’s spread by tracking those exposed. They will be informed that someone they know has tested positive (for privacy reasons the name will be withheld) and they may have been exposed. They will be instructed or asked to get tested, to self-quarantine for a period, which may or may not be monitored, and to share the names and numbers of those they have recently been in contact with. Those persons in turn will be called, and so on.
Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Statnews.com the idea’s practical intention: ‘You can prevent the clusters from becoming outbreaks, prevent outbreaks from becoming epidemics, and prevent the epidemics from driving us into our homes again.’”
I understand the idea, and it seems to be an important part of how South Korea, Taiwan, etc., have successfully dealt with COVID-19. But, today, in America, contact tracing is not going to work. Ms. Noonan noted some of the problems in her article, which was published on May 28 but may have been written a day or two before that:
“Most of the tracking will apparently be done by phone. …
We are a divided nation. Some will see the program as Big Brother. Others will think it’s ICE at the door. We’re a whole country dodging bill collectors and afraid to answer our so-called landlines because of scammers who say they’re the IRS or your credit-card company. There’s a lot of understandable suspicion and some paranoia. …
They’d better think through how they do this. So much will depend on execution. Some trackers will be geniuses of tact and empathy. Some will be officious clods. …
Everything will depend on humility of process.”
And this was written before George Floyd was killed in Minnesota. How is contact tracing going to work today? Who’s going to pick up their phones? Who’s going to believe what they are told on the phone. Who’s going to tell some voice over the phone who they have been in contact with and what their phone numbers are? Look at the protests, riots, and curfews going on all over the country. How is contact tracing going to work with all that going on?
I don’t know what this means to our battle against COVID-19. Experts can say contact tracing is important, and government officials can talk about the programs they are going to set up, but the experts and the officials need to realize that contact tracing isn’t going to work. I wish it could, but it won’t. Because people don’t’ trust the government.
We need to find another solution. I realize that it will take time to come up with something else and that whatever we come up with probably won’t be as good as contact tracing, but something that works, even if it is only half as good, is better than something that doesn’t.
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