I will not have my phone pinging me just because someone else has gotten sick. If I get sick, I’ll take appropriate measures. But I’m not walking around waiting to get pinged. In high density areas like a city, you’ll be at risk for getting more pings about COVID than texts from friends and colleagues.
To me, this is simply obnoxious; but imagine the people who already can’t handle anxiety or mainstream fear paranoia, how will they do with being pinged about their potential acute death sentence multiple times a day?
Furthermore, unless I end up in hospital from symptoms, I won’t be pursuing a COVID test because of how haphazardly it’s assumed I should suddenly be tracked. That’s a big NO. I was not opposed to getting tested until seeing how a positive test suddenly comes with all of these assumptions and implied actions to take next.
All of this is a red flag setting precedent for worse things. In the other thread I used the example of HIV/AIDS. That’s something that “should” have contact tracing, yet it does not. So far we can statistically say that people recover from COVID. Not so with HIV, which is a death on maintenance. So I find this COVID tracking supremely suspicious.
If you’ve got no problem with this, then get ahead of the curve you’re flattening and imagine a future where you’re pinged for passing a stranger with COVID … then passing one with HIV … then passing one with Herpes … etc. It’s all inappropriate.
The violation of privacy is not with the data (which I applaud Apple for handling well), but with the idea of allowing our health to be broadcast and allowing our personal devices invaded with pings from those who willy-nilly broadcast their health out of some noble sense of saving the world.
It would honestly make more sense to have no privacy and share everyone’s contact info. That way if you, Person Who Supports Tracking, pass me and get me sick, then I can sue your insurance to cover my healthcare to get sick. How does that sound? Just like with a car accident.
After all, contacting COVID and ending up in hospital in the US is more likely a financial death sentence than an actual death sentence. Statistically speaking, anyway.
This exposure notification (let’s get it right, this is important) is for a singular, incredibly novel virus with a large number of silent carriers, no vaccine guaranteed, and treatment options for those already sick still heavily under research. Using the HIV/AIDS parallel is borderline offensive. That’s a virus (in the case of HIV) for which testing and treatment is widely available, after fighting for a long time for such.
The logic that this is going to bleed into other aspects of our lives falls apart when you realize this is an interim solution for the aforementioned novelties of this virus, particularly in how it spreads. The same virus could barely cause any symptoms for one person and they could experience a full recovery, but they pass another before realizing they’re sick, that person catches it, and without any proper next steps taken, they’re dead. This API allows for those “next steps” to be taken in an extremely prompt fashion, if done properly. The identifiers are anonymous, no matter how many people on here don’t think that’s possible (conspiracy, plain and simple); getting sued for healthcare costs is really not a concern here.
We are lucky to have this, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones. With the way these APIs are built, there is no “permanent” opt-in. Turn the switch off, delete the app. Believing this won’t effectively get rid of everything related to exposure notification on one’s phone is, again, pure conspiracy. (This forum is no stranger to that though.)
This isn’t about some noble sense of saving the world. For many, who are either high-risk themselves or live with high-risk people (or both), this is about genuine self-protection and the protection of loved ones.
P.S.—with respect to mental health, the idea that someone’s anxiety over getting these pings all the time is enough reason for them to turn it off is ludicrous. If they’re getting that many pings, they need to stay at home.