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Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Contact Tracing API Available From April 28

JOHN PRINCE said:
You are correct. One of Sweden's top epidemiologists, Johan Giesecke, a scientist with top credentials and a member of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards at the WHO, is convinced half the population of the UK and Sweden have already had the virus and never even knew it. I'm with science on this one.
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So now we're trusting one person's opinion, which is based not on data or facts, but feeling "convinced"? We all hope more people have had it already without showing symptoms, because that means we're closer to accidental her immunity and it's far less lethal than initial projected, but there is no data to prove that right now. Science = data, not basing things on a hunch.
 
gnipgnop said:
In reality, the flu isn't even close to being as bad as Covid-19. Mortality rate for common flu is .1%.
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The models for Covid-19 from the beginning have been wrong. They're continually being modified downward. For just the US, the initial projection was 2 million dead. That has been modified downward over and over again, now at 60K. The mortality rate is now said to be <2%. But, ongoing testing and evidence is starting to show far more wide spread infections (mild and asymptomatic) than estimated, and this fact is lowing the mortality rate further (which is a good thing). In the end you will see the rate fall to 0.1-0.3% on par with the common flu. Just watch.

The economic devastation that's currently being caused will end up killing far more people than this virus.
 
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It's difficult to get the right combination of personal privacy and the need to protect public health. Fortunately, our elected officials understand how technology works. Otherwise, this could end in a real disaster.
 
Schranke said:
This will only result in me turning off Bluetooth when I’m out in public and not using any Bluetooth devices.
As I have understood what is being developed, it will collect data from all devices it comes in contact with regardless of you having the app or not.
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yea but the data will be anonymized, it will not be possible to track who you met or where, it's just about "have you been in contact with an infected person, or if you are infected yourself and a doctor has activated that in your app, others will be warned when they were in your proximity for more than a few minutes. Why would you not want that over an endless shutdown? I hope people like you will change their minds and help us get over this crisis.
 
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ruka.snow said:
it is not impossible. You follow the rules and wait in a neat line outside then follow the one way system when it is your turn. Children have learned how to do this and follow it to the letter, it can’t be hard for adults.
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Might be true in the States, not where I am from. (NL)
Undoable here, too many people inside and no 1 way system, a 1 way system would work if you need
a lot, what if I just need 1 single item, I need to walk the whole supermarket to just pick one
thing?!

ArtOfWarfare said:
It's possible.
  1. Limit the number of people allowed in the store at a time.
  2. Only allow people to move in one direction within each aisle, disallow passing, and disallow getting within 6 feet of each other.
  3. When employees are restocking an aisle, rope it off so that customers aren't in it.
  4. Self-checkout. Have customers use hand sanitizer before and after.
Stores in my area are legally required to do #1 and #2. Home Depot and other warehouse type stores do #3 anyways (keep employees away from the scissor jacks and movable stairs and stuff). Many stores choose to do #4 without a pandemic going on.
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Limit the amount of people works if there are not that many people needing that place, a supermarket is visited by so many people that it doesn't really work.
As above, what if you just need one single item, walk a mile just for 1 item...meh.
Closing the isle while restocking sound good but isn't, lots of people have to wait for them to finish, cues get longer.
Self checkout does work, here i one supermarket they hardly ever check your items upon leaving, there's always one attendant checking your items in another one which makes little sense.
 
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mytdave said:
Yes, the virus is very real, yes it is extremely contagious, yes it kills people, but in reality it's no more lethal than the common flu.
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“In reality”, it has already killed more in a few months than the flu does in an entire year, and that’s with extreme social distancing measures applied. In reality, it also appears to cause permanent damage to the lung and other organs. In reality, people build up immunity to the flu or can take a vaccine; for this virus, the jury’s out on that (and a vaccine doesn’t yet exist at all).
 
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ruka.snow said:
it is not impossible. You follow the rules and wait in a neat line outside then follow the one way system when it is your turn. Children have learned how to do this and follow it to the letter, it can’t be hard for adults.
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It doesn't work like that in my part of the UK. There is a line outside but once you are inside the shop it's a free for all!
 
mytdave said:
The models for Covid-19 from the beginning have been wrong. They're continually being modified downward. For just the US, the initial projection was 2 million dead. That has been modified downward over and over again, now at 60K. The mortality rate is now said to be <2%. But, ongoing testing and evidence is starting to show far more wide spread infections (mild and asymptomatic) than estimated, and this fact is lowing the mortality rate further (which is a good thing). In the end you will see the rate fall to 0.1-0.3% on par with the common flu. Just watch.

The economic devastation that's currently being caused will end up killing far more people than this virus.
Click to expand...

New York just published their antibody study today and it suggests that 3 million in the state have already had it. The dominator keeps growing and the death rate is going down fast. We average 60,000 flu deaths a year in the US. In the 2017/2018 US flu season there were 79,000 deaths. Also there is lots of evidence that this virus is being used a cause of death way too easily, inflating the numbers.
 
chfilm said:
yea but the data will be anonymized, it will not be possible to track who you met or where, it's just about "have you been in contact with an infected person, or if you are infected yourself and a doctor has activated that in your app, others will be warned when they were in your proximity for more than a few minutes. Why would you not want that over an endless shutdown? I hope people like you will change their minds and help us get over this crisis.
Click to expand...
As soon as we are in a state of x person within a distance of you has it, it is not anonymizes. When it comes to anonymizes data the whole point is that you should not be able to figure out who. If I am only near one person who might have had it, but no longer is a carrier, I’m sure as hell would know who.

having a system where you get a notification that you might be in contact can lead to even more irrational behavior, fear and panic.

Should I be infected I will stay home and follow the guidelines with self isolation, I have no interest in this going on any longer. Which is why that even though I am not sick I avoid contact with other thmy close family (which in turn does the same).

And I do still not trust governments with this. We have seen (at least in Denmark) how the filter for child pornography gradually has started to include other parts of the internet which is was not intended for, partly because it was the “easy” way as we had a tool which could do that. It’s not to the degree that I will say it’s compromise free speech, but it is just one extreme government away from being a potential danger.

Take for example what Orban is doing against the LGBTQ+ people in Hungary. I am sure he would love the idea of being able to map where people come in contact with transsexuals. Or how Poland have plans on labeling sex educators and LGBTQ+ people as pedophiles. Imagine getting a notification of a pedophile near you, just because some one saw it fit to label you that due to you educating others about sex or for not fitting within the norm.
 
tabilo said:
Sweden did nothing? They relied on the common sense of people to keep distance. Did this work out well? They are now worse off than most countries in Europe, being in the middle of an exponential growth path. If a healthy young population contracts the Virus, the likelihood of being hospitalised is 2-3% according to latest studies. There is a pretty well designed French study that excludes retirement homes from the statistics and finds a CFR of 0.5%, which is in line with other studies (0.2-0.9%). There are also studies that suggest that even asymptomatic cases might suffer from long lasting, if not permanent, damage of the lung cells. The corrected CFR in the US is 8% at the moment, which means that even if you are off by a factor of 40%, this disease is worse than even a really bad flu season. I think it is safe to say that humanity knows too little to make a call on this and it's in the best interest to give scientists at least a bit more time to understand how this can be treated and in which situation we are in. Germany and South Korea did that, they were able to identify the first cases/clusters and the society, to a wide extend, accepted the social distancing recommendations and the soft-lockdown, this is why they are both in a rather lucky position for now. Germany has 5000+ cases that died from the Virus, the regular flu seasons has 100-200 diagnosed cases that die from it (other numbers are estimates based on the excess fatality rate), so we are already 25-50 times worse off than an entire flu season with just 2-3 months into this pandemic.
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Far more people have had this than reported. 2% of people aren't going to the hospital over it. USC, Stanford and others have already done studies on this. The official numbers are off by 40-80x. 40-75% of people show zero symptoms. We've all already had this most likely.
 
Schranke said:
As soon as we are in a state of x person within a distance of you has it, it is not anonymizes.
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Which is why the system doesn't do that. It doesn't actually know the phone of the carrier; it just knows that there was a phone nearby with it.

You cannot link it back to locations or people.
 
chucker23n1 said:
You can write five paragraphs but can't instead first read up?
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Well I do not see any indication in this article on how it’s supposed to work. Which is why I ask for a link to the technical side of it, since you suggest I read the specs and apparently know more then me.
But that does still not change my concerns for anything when it comes to tracing people.
 
Schranke said:
As I have understood what is being developed, it will collect data from all devices it comes in contact with regardless of you having the app or not.
Click to expand...
So... you didn't understand, then.
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mytdave said:
The models for Covid-19 from the beginning have been wrong. They're continually being modified downward. For just the US, the initial projection was 2 million dead. That has been modified downward over and over again, now at 60K. The mortality rate is now said to be <2%. But, ongoing testing and evidence is starting to show far more wide spread infections (mild and asymptomatic) than estimated, and this fact is lowing the mortality rate further (which is a good thing). In the end you will see the rate fall to 0.1-0.3% on par with the common flu. Just watch.
Click to expand...
Did you stop to think that the decreasing rates are *because* of the lockdowns?

This always happens. Bad thing is going to happen, strict measures are taken to prevent the bad thing from happening, the thing doesn't happen (or isn't that bad) thanks to those measures, people use it to justify the measures weren't necessary in the first place.
 
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ArtOfWarfare said:
It's possible.
  1. Limit the number of people allowed in the store at a time.
  2. Only allow people to move in one direction within each aisle, disallow passing, and disallow getting within 6 feet of each other.
  3. When employees are restocking an aisle, rope it off so that customers aren't in it.
  4. Self-checkout. Have customers use hand sanitizer before and after.
Stores in my area are legally required to do #1 and #2. Home Depot and other warehouse type stores do #3 anyways (keep employees away from the scissor jacks and movable stairs and stuff). Many stores choose to do #4 without a pandemic going on.
Click to expand...
CarlJ said:
Saying "it totally wouldn't work because it might inconvenience me slightly..."
Too damn bad. Welcome to the new reality. Plan your shopping trips more carefully.
Think ahead about what you'll need. Make a list.
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Too busy rebuilding Appartement.;)
 
Schranke said:
This will only result in me turning off Bluetooth when I’m out in public and not using any Bluetooth devices.
As I have understood what is being developed, it will collect data from all devices it comes in contact with regardless of you having the app or not.
Click to expand...
Instead of spouting nonsense, you should find Apple's website and see what they are actually doing.

Your phone will gather codes from phones (Android and iPhone) nearby, that cannot be used in any way to find the owner of the phone. The codes change every fifteen minutes, so nobody can even use these codes where someone has been during a day. And if the owner of one of these phones is informed that they have COVID-19, then they press a button, and all the other phones are informed that they were nearby someone who know has COVID-19 and take action.

Only the owners of these phones can do anything, and the only thing the are told is that at some point, they were near to the wrong person. Nobody ever knows anyone's identity, and nobody can ever find out.
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nicolas17 said:
This always happens. Bad thing is going to happen, strict measures are taken to prevent the bad thing from happening, the thing doesn't happen (or isn't that bad) thanks to those measures, people use it to justify the measures weren't necessary in the first place.
Click to expand...
That's also a problem the other way round. In the UK, if we had locked down 4 weeks earlier, we wouldn't have 18,000 dead but 1,800. But then the visible cost of lockdown divided by 1,800 would be ten times higher than cost of lockdown divided by 18,000. So the politicians saving 16,200 lives could say goodbye to any reelection.
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Schranke said:
Well I do not see any indication in this article on how it’s supposed to work. Which is why I ask for a link to the technical side of it, since you suggest I read the specs and apparently know more then me.
But that does still not change my concerns for anything when it comes to tracing people.
Click to expand...
Technical specification is here:

www.apple.com

Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing - Apple and Google

Contact Tracing makes it possible to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
www.apple.com www.apple.com

Warning: It's a technical specification. It's aimed at software developers, not the general public. I skimmed through the API documentation, which is purely for iOS developers, and conclude that if someone paid me to write an app, I could do it easily. And it would work with any app using this API, and I suppose Google has an Android website with an Android API, and my app would work together with Google apps using the Google API as well.

France and the NHS may be kicking themselves for having wasted money to try to do this themselves.

Oh wait ... https://www.computing.co.uk/news/4013854/nhs-apple-google-api-upcoming-covid-19-contact-tracing-app

So the NHS has confirmed they will be using this API.
 
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gnasher729 said:
Instead of spouting nonsense, you should find Apple's website and see what they are actually doing.

Your phone will gather codes from phones (Android and iPhone) nearby, that cannot be used in any way to find the owner of the phone. The codes change every fifteen minutes, so nobody can even use these codes where someone has been during a day. And if the owner of one of these phones is informed that they have COVID-19, then they press a button, and all the other phones are informed that they were nearby someone who know has COVID-19 and take action.

Only the owners of these phones can do anything, and the only thing the are told is that at some point, they were near to the wrong person. Nobody ever knows anyone's identity, and nobody can ever find out.
[automerge]1587714909[/automerge]

That's also a problem the other way round. In the UK, if we had locked down 4 weeks earlier, we wouldn't have 18,000 dead but 1,800. But then the visible cost of lockdown divided by 1,800 would be ten times higher than cost of lockdown divided by 18,000. So the politicians saving 16,200 lives could say goodbye to any reelection.
[automerge]1587715306[/automerge]

Technical specification is here:

www.apple.com

Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing - Apple and Google

Contact Tracing makes it possible to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
www.apple.com www.apple.com

Warning: It's a technical specification. It's aimed at software developers, not the general public. I skimmed through the API documentation, which is purely for iOS developers, and conclude that if someone paid me to write an app, I could do it easily. And it would work with any app using this API, and I suppose Google has an Android website with an Android API, and my app would work together with Google apps using the Google API as well.

France and the NHS may be kicking themselves for having wasted money to try to do this themselves.

Oh wait ... https://www.computing.co.uk/news/4013854/nhs-apple-google-api-upcoming-covid-19-contact-tracing-app

So the NHS has confirmed they will be using this API.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the link, and providing an explanation of how it works.
I will look through it, though I am not a software developer, so your summarisation might do just the trick.
 
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