The temptation for a democratic government to expand its powers without an effective sunset (cf. Patriot Act) is a nice headline but is also trivially obviated. Since the UK's parliament has currently decided not to hold Divisions (voting) it can only pass legislation that has broad consensus - basically the Speaker or their deputy will ask a question, and if they hear any dissent that means division, they're not holding any Divisions so the motion fails. You might push through some open-ended nonsense with a straight party line vote but that requires a Division. Unless you believe somehow Westminster now lacks even one single decent person to say "No" a sunset clause seems inevitable in any such legislation.

But there are legitimate obstacles far more interesting which the article brings up. What proportion of the UK's population even own a device capable of being deployed this way? If it's 80% of those who actually can go somewhere (it arguably doesn't matter that 95-year old Nana Smith doesn't own a phone when she hasn't left her nursing home since the London Olympics) then you might be on to a winner, if it's 40% that's unworkable.

And there are logistical problems, both in deploying the associated testing and treatment strategy (e.g. where do we put quarantined people? If we send them home that's not very effective especially if other members of the household aren't tested positive) and deploying a hypothetical contact tracing app to millions of citizens.

But one thing test + trace has going for it, which the article hints at, is that we already know it works. The virus is not a mysterious "invisible enemy" it's just a virus, if we can identify everyone (or more realistically almost everyone) who is infected quickly and quarantine them in an effective way we can literally get rid of it.

Guinea Worm is a surprisingly relevant example here. Guinea Worm is literally a worm that can grow inside humans, and so of course we can't give people a vaccine against it, any more than we can vaccinate you against shark bites or being mauled by a bear. And weirdly although it is a worm, the medications known to be effective in killing worms in humans don't work. So eradicating Guinea Worm is mostly about stopping the worm's lifecycle, giving people safe drinking water, keeping people with worms out of the water, that sort of thing. And it works. Chances are no HN readers live anywhere with endemic Guinea Worm, even though we've nothing really resembling a "treatment" for it.

Maybe we will get a vaccine that works. Or a miracle drug which makes it low risk to have COVID-19 in a developed country where they can just have the right drugs at the pharmacy to fix it. But maybe not. Test & trace works even if not.