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Putting countries into lockdown / shelter in place buys us time to figure out our next move, but the clock is ticking. Let's talk about mass testing and contact tracing as probably the best option to safely ease restrictions in the months ahead [THREAD]
Aggressive social distancing measures are essential to stop hospitals getting overwhelmed. But lockdowns come at an enormous cost and cannot continue indefinitely. Governments need to think now about what comes next https://twitter.com/ianmulheirn/status/1247140243263930371
The good news is that the trade-off between saving lives and saving our way of life isn't immutable. Humanity has ingenuity on our side, and if we're smart we might be able to find ways to ease the lockdown whilst keeping the virus under control
Start with contact tracing, which is about breaking the chain of transmission. Because Covid-19 is so contagious, when new cases occur it's important to be able to quickly identify and isolate people they may have infected. Doing this manually is impossible at scale
Digital tools give us a way forward, by taking advantage of the devices most of us carry everywhere we go. An app can securely record when your phone has been near someone else's, and then send you an alert when it's possible you were recently at risk https://twitter.com/BJMCooney/status/1247484036391546880
This of course raises important questions about surveillance and inclusion. The crisis demands action, but not that we abandon our principles. All measures must respect human rights, be proportionate and work within the rule of law https://twitter.com/rachelcoldicutt/status/1242589293446561795
A good first step is to focus on proximity rather than location, but even then there are challenges. Privacy protecting and decentralised models address some important risks, by making it harder for data to be exploited or compromised https://twitter.com/carmelatroncoso/status/1246122415794593794
(as an aside, Apple's system for finding lost phones and laptops is a fascinating detour into how cryptography can be used to leverage device proximity and location data whilst maintaining privacy and anonymity, including from Apple itself) https://twitter.com/a_greenberg/status/1136336473941336064
A contact tracing app will work best when a lot of people are using it, so it'll be important for governments to encourage adoption and build trust across all parts of society (and potentially also mandate interoperability across borders?) https://twitter.com/STcom/status/1245306885978361856
We'll also need to ensure any alerts people receive via the app give them clear instructions about what to do next. The whole point of a contact tracing app is to get people who might otherwise spread the virus to isolate, so behaviour change is critical
This is where mass testing comes in. Asking people to go back into isolation will be much easier if there's a mechanism to quickly test whether they actually are (or were) infected, with a view to getting them back out ASAP https://twitter.com/DaceHermione/status/1247089467090964480
Thus far countries have managed to test single digit percentages of their populations. Looking ahead, to ease lockdowns over an extended period they might need to be prepared to test each of their citizens 10 times or more https://twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/1241127043863130119
So the scale at which testing needs to operate at is HUGE. This is both a science and manufacturing lift to get accurate tests ready, and also a logistics and mobilisation lift to distribute them to homes with the necessary community support https://twitter.com/InstituteGC/status/1247117365596377088
Lastly, we will probably need a way for people to credibly assert they have been tested. A digital credential would be one way to do this, and properly constructed might be able to provide validated proof without leaking other personal data
Whether a so-called "immunity passport" should be linked to a tracing app is a separate question. On the one hand it would probably drive take-up, on the other it complicates the issues around data collection and monitoring. More on this another time...
As ever with technology policy, the biggest questions here are really about us. What new measures are we prepared to accept? What does a fair system look like, especially for the most vulnerable? What safeguards do we need to earn public trust?
There remains a vast amount we still don't know about Covid-19. But one thing is clear: when it comes to technology there are some difficult policy decisions ahead, and we will need the right principles to guide them [ENDS] https://institute.global/policy/technology-and-response-covid-19-our-approach
