Your phone buzzes. A text message alerts you that someone you’ve recently encountered has a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus, and that you spent more than 30 minutes a week ago in close proximity to the newly-diagnosed patient.
Maybe it’s time to self-quarantine, or even get tested. It’s definitely not time to visit grandma or head to work.
Sounds futuristic, and perhaps a bit intrusive?
The technology to create a “reverse 911” or Amber Alert-style system for the coronavirus already exists — the Israeli Ministry of Health uses the app Hamagen while Italy relies on the apps DiAry and Webtek’s StopCovid19 — and it’s being refined daily.
UMN, HEALTHPARTNERS WORK ON APP
The University of Minnesota and HealthPartners are at work on an app they tentatively plan to call “SafeDistance,” though HealthPartners has declined comment for the time being.
What’s less certain is the degree to which privacy advocates and everyday consumers will voluntarily opt into such services when they’re ready for widespread application — or whether government might someday legally mandate that smartphone companies automatically enroll their customers.
“U.S. companies are very worried about fines imposed when there’s privacy violations,” said Shashi Shekhar, a computer scientist, data engineer and McKnight Distinguished Professor with the University of Minnesota. “Most apps are opt-in for data privacy reasons. They do not (automatically) have access to positive test results.”
In Minnesota, the last state in the nation to roll out federally-mandated Real I.D. licenses, resistance to widespread information sharing is likely.
But at least on a state by state basis, public debates weighing individual privacy concerns against community well-being may not be far off.
IT’S ALL ABOUT BREAD CRUMBS
Here’s how an app-based system would work, according to Shekhar:
Two cell phones in close proximity can trade small packets of encrypted information — Shekhar likens them to “bread crumbs” — that live on the hardware of a phone, providing a road map of sorts not just to the places the owner has been in the past 14 days but also to the people they’ve spent time with. They can even tell if the contact was fleeting or prolonged.
That’s important information for public health experts, infectious disease researchers and “virus detectives” trying to get ahead of the coronavirus by tracing back who infected who.
The act of mapping those likely contacts and infections through person-to-person interviews, officially known as “contact tracing,” has been an effective tool for countries such as a South Korea, which recorded its first case of COVID-19 at the same time the U.S. did but has had better luck containing the virus.
But successful contact tracing requires elaborate testing, and test kits in the U.S. have been in short supply.
And traditional, labor intensive, interview-based contact tracing has other limits, said Shekhar. For one, human memories are unreliable narrators. In a study based in Singapore, the majority of infected patients had no recollection of encountering the person who infected them. In another study based in hard-hit Wuhan, China, even fewer people recalled their point of contact.
“This manual process, for small outbreaks it has worked well,” Shekhar said, but there’s a point where the detectives can’t keep up with transmissions that have spread from one traveler outward throughout the community, or “community spread.”
SOONER TH$ INFECTED CAN BE ISOLATED, THE BETTER
Just a few days ago, the state of Connecticut abandoned its efforts at manual contact tracing and left it to local public health agencies to pick up the pieces.
“They are now recruiting medical students and everyone else,” Shekhar said.
Shekhar sees the digital “bread crumbs” that cell phones can share as a more accurate alternative to manual contact tracing — and a possible way to someday limit quarantines to the very vulnerable and to the recently exposed, as opposed to the general population.
“For this outbreak, we’re looking for ways to help them,” Shekhar added. “The sooner we can isolate the vulnerable and the spreaders, the better off we are.”
VOLUNTARY OPT-IN OR AUTOMATIC ENROLLMENT?
But what happens if only certain people opt into the app, and others don’t? How can those who decline to participate be located and alerted?
While perhaps not ideal, Shekhar said experts can map the route that the infected patient took in recent days, and post a general notice to a website or physical signs in those locations.
“Here were the places and times where there were significant exposure,” Shekhar said. “It’s not as effective, but you could advise the public, ‘if you were in this location at this time, you may have been exposed.'”
The ideal, he said, would be automatic enrollment during times of crisis such as the current pandemic, though that could be a hard sell with privacy advocates.
It’s doubtful that most people would feel comfortable with government and industry knowing exactly who they hung out or whether they’re sick, but that information has to get to a public health agency for maximum effectiveness in alerting others.
As for privacy concerns, Shekhar said there’s always trade-offs, and there’s precedent for automatic information sharing with government entities.
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Since 2011, when smartphone users dial 911, their location is automatically shared with a 911 call center, for instance. Cell providers likewise opt into geographically-targeted government hurricane warnings on their customers’ behalf.
Currently, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — HIPAA — protects patient data privacy, but Shekhar said there are state-by-state exceptions.
For instance, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have mandated that partners must be informed if a patient tests positive for HIV.
Automatic notification “should only be done in case of emergency which is life-threatening,” Shekhar said. “There should be checks and balances. And the language should not reveal any private information. It should be empathetic. You should offer (the public) particular advice or resources.”
DATA FROM CLOUD-CONNECTED THERMOMETERS
There are other ways to comb personal data for clues as to where the virus is spreading. In recent days, Kinsa Health, a company that creates Internet-connected thermometers, has drawn attention for its efforts to track the virus by having its customers voluntarily upload their body temps to the Internet, or the “cloud.”
“In exchange, they give you health resources,” Shekhar said. “It’s sort of like the nurse line. You can go through a questionnaire to see if you should get professional medical advice. They can link you to someone who can.”
How well does that predict the spread of the virus? Kinsa claims it can pinpoint likely coronavirus hotspots faster than the Centers for Disease Control’s online weekly flu tracker, and it correctly identified South Florida as the site of a likely outbreak days before virus testing confirmed it to be true.
However, thermometers can’t tell the difference between COVID-19 and the flu, and the effort may not involve enough subscribers to be truly representative. But even preliminary results would seem to indicate alarming trends.
“It can be used as a first step, a way to focus attention,” Shekhar said.
"Smartphone" - Google News
April 09, 2020 at 07:35PM
https://ift.tt/3b0uUla
Smartphone apps could help trace spread of coronavirus — if we’re ready to give up some privacy - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
"Smartphone" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2QXWyGT
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Smartphone apps could help trace spread of coronavirus — if we’re ready to give up some privacy - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press"
Post a Comment